POTTS, Marie

Wickenburg Sun, Wickenburg, Arizona September 10, 1970 The following account of the ghastly tragedy at Circle City at 6:30 a.m. Monday is from the Tuesday morning edition of the Arizona Republic which has access to the records of the State Department of Public Safety not made available to the state’s other newspapers. A California couple, a truck driver and a 16 year old girl hitchhiker were killed early yesterday in a fiery head on crash between a truck and a car near Wickenburg the State Department of Public Safety reported. The victims were identifies as Clarence Potts and his wife, Marie, both of Desert Hot Springs; truck driver Thomas Fulbright of Long Beach, Calif., and Debbie Demoree, 16, of Dallas. The sole survivor of the crash, Karen Demoree, 15, Debbie’s sister was reported in critical condition at Maricopa County Hospital. The young girl told investigators that Fulbright, with who the Demoree girls were riding, apparently fell asleep while westbound on U.S. 60 and his truck struck a bridge abutment 15 miles east of Wickenburg at circle City and careened into the eastbound sedan in which the Potts were riding. The tractor-trailer rig, carrying a load of refrigerated hamburger, and the car exploded and burst into flames on impact, investigating patrolmen said. Traffic was blocked at the bridge for three hours while firemen and rescuers put out the flames and removed the wreckage. For two hours after that, only one lane of traffic were open, officers said.