A teenager who was killed in a fiery car crash in Carroll County is credited with saving her family from her violent fiance.
The teen and her 20-year-old fiance died in the Thanksgiving night crash.
Elijah Cox, 20, of Villa Rica, was driving on Rainey Road about 8:40 p.m. Thursday with Raina Reed, 16, in the passenger seat. Cox’s Volvo sedan crossed into the opposite lane on a curve, then struck a tree and caught fire, killing the pair.
But the violence started earlier in the night.
Cox tried to leave Reed’s family Thanksgiving gathering with the teen. After being told he could not leave with Reed, her aunt, who spoke to Channel 2 Action News but asked not to be named, said he turned violent. She said he was drunk. After he left, Reed’s aunt took the girl back to her parents’ house in Temple.
“He said nobody could stop him,” the aunt told Channel 2.
Cox showed up at the house armed with a rifle and handguns, firing at a neighbor, who is a Haralson County sheriff’s deputy.
“He shot before he came in the house, three times,” the aunt said.
Reed and six family members were hiding in the bathroom.
“He came in yelling for Raina, and kicked in the bathroom door and she jumped up as brave as she is and slapped him in the face and told him to stop, and he grabbed her, and she was telling him to stop, that she didn’t want to go,” her aunt said.
Reed’s aunt told Channel 2 she believed the teen agreed to leave with Cox to keep him from killing the rest of the family.
Police said Reed was abducted from the home at gunpoint.
“She’s our hero. She saved our life,” her aunt said.
Carroll County officials said they spotted Cox’s speeding car not far from the teen’s home just before the crash.
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