MT. STERLING — A Mt. Sterling man is dead following a head-on crash Monday morning on U.S. 50 east of Timber Ridge Road in Gasconade County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Major Crash Team investigated the 9:40 a.m. incident on Sept. 30 and determined Jason D. Roberts, 49, was the driver of a westbound 2010 Dodge Charger which crossed into the eastbound lane. Derald O. Deppe, 67, of Morrison, was driving a 2000 Kenworth dump truck filled with soybeans and appeared to have done everything he could to avoid the impact with Roberts’ car. The two vehicles collided head-on along the right-hand shoulder of the roadway. The dump truck continued east off the road and into the ditch where it came to rest on it’s passenger side and caught fire.

The Charger was pushed back about 50 feet and came to a stop off the road along the westbound lane, facing east.

Roberts died from “blunt force head trauma,” according to Gasconade County Coroner Jeff Arnold, who is also Owensville’s volunteer fire chief.

Owensville firemen needed more than an hour to remove Roberts’ body from the mangled wreckage. Arnold said Roberts, who was not wearing a seat belt according to the MSHP report, also had multiple broken bones in his legs which were pinned under the dashboard. 

Deppe was transported by ambulance to Mercy Washington for treatment of minor injuries. Charles C. Pratt, 22, Owensville, was a seat-belted passenger in the Charger and had minor injuries, according to the MSHP report. He too was transported by ambulance to Mercy Washington for treatment.

Deppe was hauling soybeans for the Mt. Sterling Store which acquired the dump truck in recent years from the old MFA Cooperative Exchange in Chamois when the Nolting family purchased that business.

Arnold pronounced Roberts dead at the scene at 10:02 a.m. and U.S. 50 was closed until 12:15 p.m. when one lane was opened as 4Js Towing removed both vehicles.

Missouri Department of Transportation personnel spread numerous bags of oil-absorbing material on the roadway to soak up fuel and antifreeze which covered both lanes at the impact site. An estimated 50-plus gallons of diesel fuel was also spilled in the crash.

MoDOT personnel at the scene were handling the fuel spill, a supervisor told an MSHP  officer during the early moments of the investigation.