KAUFMAN COUNTY, Texas — Days after a deadly crash early Saturday morning, Jack and Sherry Mullins are still finding car parts and personal items scattered across their yard.
The couple live just off FM 986 and County Road 246 in Kaufman County and have witnessed their fair share of wrecks in front of their home.
“We've had four fatalities on this curve that we know of in the last five years and we have had probably four to six wrecks a year,” Jack Mullins said. “I’ve seen it on Facebook called dead man’s curve.”
For years they’ve been asking TXDOT to make improvements to no avail.
“I've been calling for probably at least three years asking for more signage, reflective tape,” Sherry Mullins said.
Sherry Mullins even gave them a warning the Thursday before this crash.
“I had called TXDOT yet again to say that there was a pole down and had been for a couple of weeks and could they please discuss more signage and reflective tape,” Sherry Mullins said. “I said cause if we don't do something about this corner, somebody's going to die.”
Less than 48 hours later, that’s exactly what happened.
“Braxton was a nice young man,” Sherry Mullins said. “He was 21, been home a week from Poland where he was deployed in the Army, his mom got to spend one day with him before he died.”
DPS says Braxton James was driving the stretch of FM 486 around 3 a.m. that morning when he veered off the road in front of the Mullins home.
“He came across the yard then left the ground, and from went airborne into the tree,” Jack Mullins said.
Braxton died in the hospital. Hours later, his family knocked on the Mullins door.
“And he said our son was killed here this morning and I just, we lost it,” Sherry Mullins said.
They helped Braxton’s family collect some of his scattered items, then the Mullins made them a promise.
“I don't want to stand here or there or wherever and talk to another parent about their kid being killed or maimed,” Sherry Mullins said.
Now they’re rallying the community together and starting a petition to push TXDOT even harder to make the road safer.
“The Texas Department of Transportation works closely with local law enforcement," TXDOT said in a statement to WFAA. "This case is still under investigation. The department reviews all fatal crash reports each month to determine if potential modifications are warranted.”
The Mullins say they’ve invited TXDOT engineers to their property to observe it themselves.
“He can sit right there and listen to me and I'd like for Braxton's dad, to be sitting right there and tell him how his Father’s Day was this year,” Sherry Mullins said.