Alabama Trucker Charged With Manslaughter In I-40 Pileup That Killed Two In Johnson County

CLARKSVILLE, Ark. — Johnson County prosecutors on Monday charged an Alabama truck driver with two counts of manslaughter in the Oct. 25, 2025, chain-reaction crash on Interstate 40 that killed two people in a burning pickup and cost another driver her leg.

Harry Strode, 63, of Bessemer, Ala., was hauling about 72 head of cattle in a 2014 Peterbilt for Jones Farms when he drove into stopped westbound traffic near mile marker 70 at about 4:50 p.m., according to an affidavit by Arkansas State Police Special Agent Seth Race filed with the charges in Johnson County Circuit Court. Race swore to the affidavit Sept. 25, 11 months after the crash; prosecutors filed it with the information Oct. 12.

Andrea Levine, who was driving a 2011 Ford F-150, and her passenger, Larry Levine, died in the truck, which was shoved into other vehicles, left the road and caught fire, the affidavit says. Their bodies were identified through DNA. The medical examiner found both died of blunt-force injuries and that the fire damage came after death.

Andrea Levine, 59, and Larry Levine, 79, were daughter and father and lived in Lamar, a few miles from the crash site, according to their obituaries. She had worked for Walmart for more than 25 years. He was a Navy veteran who retired after more than 40 years with Ryerson Tull. A joint memorial service was held Nov. 15 at Roller-Cox Funeral Home in Clarksville.

The information filed by Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Phillips’ office lists 25 counts: two counts of manslaughter, one count of first-degree battery, three counts of second-degree battery, eight counts of criminal mischief and 11 federal motor-carrier violations, from a radar detector in the cab to brakes out of adjustment. Manslaughter is a Class B felony carrying five to 20 years in prison on each count.

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Traffic was stopped or crawling because a trooper was finishing work on a separate crash a mile back, the affidavit says. The road was wet. Strode was traveling about 80 mph in a zone posted at 70 for commercial vehicles.

Dash camera footage shows Strode did not let off the accelerator until 4:49:53 p.m. and did not touch the brakes until 4:49:57 p.m., the same second he struck the back of the Levines’ pickup, Race wrote.

The F-150 was pushed into a Dodge Journey driven by Simone Nash, spun into the front of a Kenworth truck driven by Vardan Demirchian and went off the north side of the interstate, where it burned. Strode’s rig kept going, shoving the Journey into a Nissan Rogue driven by a 16-year-old girl with her father, Robert Barr, in the passenger seat. The trailer then hit a second Kenworth, driven by Abu Turay, hard enough to tear its trailer loose.

The Rogue was pushed into the side of Turay’s truck and rolled onto its driver’s side. Strode’s truck and the Rogue then struck a Honda Odyssey carrying Enrique Acuna, Monica Herrera-Hernandez and two children, which clipped a Honda Accord. Strode’s truck hit a guardrail, went into the median and overturned, and its trailer came to rest on top of the Journey.

Nash was sedated at the scene and intubated at the hospital with burns to her leg and body, the affidavit says. Her left leg was amputated. Turay suffered spinal injuries and what the affidavit calls “ongoing serious physical impairment.” The teenage driver had a fractured C1 vertebra, cuts to her face and scalp and “critical polytrauma.” Her father had a neck strain and a bruised elbow.

Two days after the crash, Arkansas Highway Police Cpl. Andrew James inspected the rig and put the tractor out of service, the affidavit says. He found more than 20 percent of the brakes defective, a brake out of adjustment, three leaking brake chambers, a failed automatic brake adjuster, a tire worn below the legal minimum, no annual inspection records for the tractor or trailer, no driver log for the day and a radar detector in the cab.

James said the brake leaks came from dry-rotted diaphragms that an annual inspection should have caught, and that Strode had driven past the 150-air-mile agricultural exemption from Greensboro, Ala., and should have been logging his hours. No citations were issued at the scene.

“Video footage reveals that Strode traveling at 80 miles per hour made no attempt to stop, swerve, and only let off the accelerator just before striking and pushing the Ford F-150 into the preceding vehicles causing a chain of fatalities, physical injuries and property damage,” Race wrote.

State police’s preliminary report at the time said seven vehicles were involved, that the two people killed were in the same vehicle and that four injured people were taken to hospitals in Clarksville and Russellville, KNWA reported. The names of the dead and the driver were never released, and no charges had been reported until Monday’s filing. The affidavit counts eight vehicles.

A bench warrant for Strode’s arrest was issued Monday. As of Tuesday morning the court file showed it had not been served, and no attorney had entered an appearance for him. The case is assigned to Circuit Judge Jack Patterson’s Fourth Division of Johnson County Circuit Court, with Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Arik Cruz handling it for the state.