An upstate New York father made a heartbreaking discovery after tracking his two teenage daughters’ phones when they stopped responding on Thursday.
Brian Trumble He told Syracuse.com She was texting her daughters, Hailey, 19, and Shelby, 17, several times when they did not return home from Seabreeze amusement park in Rochester that night.
He then decided to use the Find My Friends app to track her whereabouts on his phone and drove just a few miles to the location it showed.
There, she discovered that her two teenage daughters had died in a fatal accident and Cuyahoga County sheriff’s deputies were already cordoning off the area.
“An officer asked me what I was doing and what I was looking for,” Brian said. “I told him I was looking for my daughters.”
Shelby, 17, and Hailey, 19, of Trumble were killed in a crash Thursday.
The teens were riding in a Chevy Cobalt eastbound on Ira Hill Road when their car “crested a hill and crossed into the oncoming lane, striking a second vehicle,” the sheriff’s office announced Monday.
‘Both Hailey and Shelby Trumble died as a result of injuries they sustained at the time of the accident.’
The other driver, identified as Robin Latham, 59, was transported to Syracuse University Hospital with serious injuries, where she remains in stable condition.
The cause of the fatal collision remains unclear and an investigation is underway, although a memorial to the sisters has been erected at the side of the road.
“It’s too early to say exactly what happened, what caused this accident and what factors were involved,” Sheriff Brian Schneck said. told CNY Central.
“But we are looking at all the evidence we can.”
He added that officials have found no evidence that either driver was intoxicated at the time of the crash.
The two teenagers were pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.
The cause of the fatal collision remains unclear and an investigation is ongoing.
The girls had recently graduated from high school, Hailey in 2023 and Shelby in 2024, completing a BOCES cosmetology program from Oswego.
“It’s a tremendous loss,” said the girls’ father. “It will never be the same again.”
He and the girls’ mother, Tina, described their daughters as simple country girls who loved animals and the outdoors.
Her love for animals began at an early age as she spent time on her grandparents’ farm, caring for cows and pigs.
The family also had cats and dogs, and once even took in a pet raccoon, Tina said.
As teenagers, the sisters would also walk to a pasture near their home to see horses, always bringing some carrots and apples to feed them, she said.
The sisters were also volunteers for the CNY Cat Coalition, and had just rescued two kittens, named Smokey and Bandit, who were thrown out of a car window days before their deaths.
Hailey’s cat needed an amputation and she was hoping to see him after her trip to Seabreeze on Thursday, but they never came home.
The girls had recently graduated from high school, Hailey in 2023 and Shelby in 2024, completing a BOCES cosmetology program from Oswego.
The girls’ parents, Brian and Tina Trumble, said the sisters were very close and often painted each other’s nails and watched Gilmore Girls and Heartland together.
Brian said he now takes comfort in the fact that the two girls were together when they died.
“One thing I’ve learned from all this is that it gives me a kind of peace; it makes me happy that they were together,” she told Syracuse.com.
The sisters were very close, their parents said, and often painted each other’s nails and watched Gilmore Girls and Heartland together.
They also enjoyed fishing, and Tina said that when Shelby was in elementary school, he would get off the bus and run straight to the pond.
“She would run down a dirt road to the pond that was out back, like in the middle of a cornfield, and go fishing every day,” he said, noting that they would also include her older brother, Riley.
“They could never go fishing without a bunch of snacks,” Tina said. “Riley would come pick them up and then they would always run to Walmart first.”
The parents described their daughters as simple country girls who loved to fish with their older brother, Riley.
The sisters were also described as caring people, who never wanted to exclude anyone from their activities and made sure to always treat others with kindness and respect.
They also made sure to check on their father when times got tough, their parents said.
But they also liked to make fun of their father, Brian said, and Tina added that Shelby was a very funny and honest kid.
“You didn’t have to wonder where you stood with Shelby, she would tell you,” Tina said.
She said losing her daughters is now the hardest thing she will ever go through in her life.
“They were everything you could wish you could be. They were full of life,” Tina said.
‘They were very loved and beautiful’
A funeral has been scheduled for Saturday and the family is now… fundraising to pay for funeral expenses.
“In this devastating incident, the Trumble family lost two girls at once: daughters, sisters, granddaughters and nieces,” the GoFundMe reads.
“From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for your kindness, love and support during this heartbreaking time.”
As of Tuesday evening, the fundraiser had far surpassed its $10,000 goal, reaching more than $38,000.