Pasco triplet killed in wreck 'loved everyone'

It was getting dark, but the girls were having fun in a friend's front yard down the street.

And, anyway, it wasn't a school night.

So Danielle Malm decided it would be OK for her daughters to play a little bit longer: The 5-year-old triplets, Delaney, Gabrielle and Isabella Rossman, and their half-sister, Victoria Morgan, 10.

"I had just been outside and given them Rice Krispies treats," Malm said.

Then, about 7:40 p.m. Friday, Malm heard a bang and ran outside.

A Jeep Cherokee had smashed into the side of the family's Plymouth Voyager minivan in the driveway of their home.

Two houses away, on the other side of King Manor Avenue, Malm saw her children on the ground.

"Gabrielle was screaming," she said. "Delaney wasn't moving."

Delaney, the youngest of the triplets, was pronounced dead an hour later at St. Joseph's Hospital.

Gabrielle remained in intensive care at the hospital Saturday night. Her mother said she has two broken clavicles, a broken pelvis, broken ribs, a broken right leg, internal bleeding and a collapsed lung.

The crash remains under investigation and no charges had been filed as of late Saturday.

According to investigators, the Jeep's driver, Betty-Jo Tagerson, pulled quickly out of her driveway at 12910 King Manor Ave. and began skidding immediately.

The Jeep went onto the shoulder, hit a mailbox at 12906 King Manor and continued along the shoulder to the next lot, where it struck a parked 2005 Chevy pickup before colliding with the children.

Tagerson ended up in the driveway at 12904 King Manor, but the Jeep kept going, drifting south on the street until it crashed into the Malms' minivan.

Isabella suffered minor injuries, as did another girl playing in the yard, 9-year-old Marissa Nanuli, troopers said.

The triplets' big sister, Victoria, escaped injury but was left distraught.

"She told her sisters to move and she got one of them out of the way," Malm said.

"She always felt like it was her job to take care of them and now I just have to tell her that she did nothing wrong and that she's brave and she is the perfect big sister and she tried everything to get them out of the way."

Tagerson, 39, was taken to St. Joseph's with serious injuries but was released Saturday.

She couldn't be reached for comment.

To Danielle Malm, the triplets were simply "the girls."

Isabella and Delaney were identical; Gabrielle fraternal. They shared a room decorated with stenciled ABCs, started kindergarten this year at Hudson Elementary and loved to sit around the table together doing their homework.

"That's how we referred to them," Danielle Malm said. "They were the girls."

Six days earlier, for Halloween, they were fairies, with dresses and wings shimmering in pink, blue and green. They wore Mary Janes on their feet, held twinkle wands and carried their candy in plastic grocery bags.

"They were all so close," their mother said.

Eric Malm said his stepdaughter Delaney's "smile would light up a room."

"She was always the one who said, 'I love you, Mommy,' no matter what I was doing," his wife said. "The other two tell me, but she would come up to me and hug my leg, just to tell me she loved me. She was so sweet and she loved everyone."

On Saturday, Malm had to identify her daughter at the medical examiner's office.

"And that was the worst thing I've ever had to do," she said outside St. Joseph's, where the family prayed for Gabrielle's recovery and waited for answers.

"My kids were doing exactly what they were told: Don't cross the road without looking both ways, even in the neighborhood. Don't play in the road; play in the yard. Don't stay by yourself; stay with your sisters."