Indiana Rep. Jackie Walorski and three others were killed Wednesday afternoon in a car crash, according to authorities.
Walorski, 58, was traveling southbound on SR 19 in an SUV with two other people when a car traveling northbound crossed the dividing line and slammed head on into the SUV. All three people in the SUV were killed.
The Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office identified the victims as Walorski; Zachery Potts, 27; and Emma Thomson, 28.
The driver of the other vehicle, Edith Schmucker, 58, was also killed in the crash.
In this July 19, 2018, photo, Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Walorski’s office says that she was killed Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022, in a car accident.
Scott Applewhite/AP, FILE
Thomson was Walorski’s communications director and Potts was previously Walorski’s campaign manager and was currently a district director in Indiana for the House of Representatives.
GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Twitter shared a statement — “with a heavy heart” — that he said was from Walorski’s office.
“Jackie was killed in a car accident this afternoon. She has returned home to be with her Lord and Savior, Jesus Chris. Please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers. We will have no further comment at this time,” the statement read.
According to the statement, Walorski’s husband was notified of her death by the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana.
A former state lawmaker, Walorski had represented Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District since 2013.
According to her House biography, she and her husband “previously spent four years as missionaries in Romania, where they started and ran a foundation to provide food and medical supplies to impoverished children there. Jackie also worked as a television news reporter in South Bend and as a development director for colleges and universities in Indiana.”
Walorski’s Republican colleague Adam Kinzinger, of Illinois, mourned her death in a brief tweet Wednesday.
Rep. Jackie Walorski is interviewed in her Cannon Building office in Washington, May 20, 2014.
Tom Williams/AP, FILE
“My heart is heavy, and i don’t have the words. But all I can say is prayers for her family,” he wrote. “She was a good and honorable public servant.”
The Elkhart County Coroner’s Office and the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office continue to investigate the crash.
ABC News’ Davone Morales contributed to this report.
