Memorial Planned for South Gwinnett Crash Victims

SNELLVILLE, GA -- A memorial service Saturday at South Gwinnett High School has been set to remember two graduates killed in a car wreck in Athens.

Olivia Cox, 22, and Megan Smith, 23, were passengers March 26 in a Nissan Sentra whose driver lost control while driving on the Athens loop. The car crossed the median and struck the driver's side of another vehicle.

Saturday's memorial is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the South Gwinnett baseball field. Cox was a softball player and bat girl for the school's baseball team and both young women loved the outdoors, friends and family members said.

Cox was buried in south Georgia but her aunt, Angie Dill, told the Gwinnett Daily Post that a service for the pair's friends in Gwinnett was needed.

"We knew that the kids up here needed a chance to say goodbye and share in the grief together," Dill said to the paper.

Several speakers are scheduled for the memorial service. Friends plan to make "sky lanterns" with messages for the two women as well.

According to Athens-Clarke County Police, the fatal accident happened between Milledge Road and Timothy Road on the Athens loop.

Cox, Smith and Maddox were passengers in a black Nissan Sentra being driven by Madison Lind Wilhelm, 21, of Social Circle.

Police say Wilhelm was southbound on the loop when her car left the roadway. She over-corrected, police say, causing the car to cross the median into the northbound lane, where it struck the driver's side of a Cadillac Deville driven by Henry Lee Lance, of Athens.

Wilhelm, Lance and Eric Dobbs, 23, of Loganville, were taken to the hospital for evaluation and later released. Dobbs also was a passenger in Wilhelm's Nissan.