Brother and sister from Columbia identified as victims of fiery crash days after wreck

Damage from a car crash that occurred Saturday was so severe the two victims killed in the wreck could not be immediately identified.

Four days after the fiery collision, a brother and sister from Columbia were named as the people who died, the Aiken County Coroner’s Office said Wednesday.

Ronald V. Towers, 28, and his sister, 27-year-old Lisa D. Towers, died in the wreck, Coroner Darryl Ables said in a news release.

It still is not known which sibling was driving the car when it crashed on Interstate 20, according to the release.

The collision occurred before 2 a.m., near mile marker 24 on I-20, Ables said. That is about 12 miles from the city of Aiken.

The car was heading east at a high rate of speed when it ran off the right side of the road and hit a tree, flipped over and burst into flames, the South Carolina Highway Patrol said.

First responders found the car engulfed in flames, and when fire fighters extinguished the blaze they discovered two burned bodies in the car, The State reported.

“No sort of an identification could be made,” Ables said Saturday in a statement.

The bodies were taken to Newberry for autopsies, which showed the Towers siblings suffered blunt force injuries, the coroner’s office said.

Results are pending from toxicology tests to determine carbon monoxide inhalation, and to help determine if drugs, alcohol or suspicious activity contributed to the crash.

The wreck remains under investigation by Highway Patrol and the coroner’s office.

This is a developing story, check back for updates.

This story was originally published October 30, 2019 at 10:18 AM.

Noah Feit

The State

803-771-8435

Noah Feit is a Real Time reporter with The State focused on breaking news, public safety and trending news. The award-winning journalist has worked for multiple newspapers since starting his career in 1999. Support my work with a digital subscription