Comments added from Sheriff Beth; edited throughout at 1p.
Kenosha---The three relatives who died as the result of a crash Friday evening in Salem Lakes have been identified as members of an old-line, prominent Kenosha family.
67 year-old Michael Rizzo, a family practitioner who was associated with Aurora Health Care, was the victim who died at the scene. A brother, Vincent Rizzo, a 76 year-old dentist, died later at the hospital, as did his wife, Mary Rizzo, a 74 year-old registered nurse.
A third brother, 72 year-old Gerald Rizzo, is being treated for his injuries, according to Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth, who spoke at a news conference Monday morning. "Many, many people in Kenosha know one or more of the Rizzos," Beth said. "This is a very difficult time for all of Kenosha," he added.
With Gerald at the wheel of a Jeep, the family members were heading home to Kenosha after having attended a fish fry out in the county. On Highway 50 just east of Paddock Lake, the Jeep was rear-ended by a pick-up driven by 40 year-old Timothy Vandervere of Beach Park, Illinois. Moments earlier, 911 dispatch received calls of a reckless driver traveling at a high rate of speed in the area.
The force of the crash flipped the Jeep into a marshy area. The state patrol estimated that Vandervere had been driving at about 100 miles per hour at the time of the crash, according to Beth.
After pushing the Rizzo vehicle into the ditch, the pick-up continued on for another 100 yards before going off the road and coming to rest in a wooded area. Vandervere remains hospitalized.
Upon his release, Vandervere is expected to be taken into custody immediately and charged with multiple counts of reckless homicide and injury and driving after revocation. He also was cited for drunk driving, although authorities have yet to receive lab results on his blood-alcohol content, Beth said.
Beth quoted Vandervere's brother as saying that Vandervere may have been drinking prior to the crash at an outing in the county Friday afternoon. When approached in the hospital over the weekend, Vandervere himself declined to talk to investigators, Beth said.
According to Beth, Vandervere's record included a prior conviction of injury by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle in 2005.
Beth said he spoke with a Rizzo family member earlier Monday. "I could tell this is a heavy burden on the entire family. He just sounded exhausted," Beth said, adding that the family wasn't concerned at the moment over who was responsible for the accident. "The thing he mentioned to me is that the family's main goal right now is just somehow to make it through burying the three family members by the end of the week."
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