16-year-old girl killed in Beecher crash

A 16-year-old girl Beecher High School student was killed in a crash Tuesday night in the south suburb.

Francesca “Frankie” Athanasopoulos’s boyfriend was driving her home in his blue Ford Ranger the 1900 block of West Indiana Avenue about 4:45 p.m. when he stopped to pull into her driveway, according to the Will County sheriff’s office.

The 17-year-old boy was stopped and waiting for oncoming traffic to pass before turning into her driveway, according to the sheriff’s office. He looked in his rearview mirror and saw a silver Ford Fusion coming up behind him at a high rate of speed. The car struck the back of the Ranger, which pushed the Ranger into coming traffic.

The truck was t-boned on the passenger side by a Dodge Ram heading east on Indiana, according to the sheriff’s office.

Athanasopoulos was airlifted to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where she died at 7:46 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy Wednesday found she died of multiple injuries in the crash, and her death was ruled an accident.

Her boyfriend was taken to St. James Community Health Center with minor injuries, according to the sheriff’s office. The other two drivers refused medical attention at the scene.

The driver of the Fusion, a 36-year-old Kankakee man, was ticketed for failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident, according to the sheriff’s office.