Funeral held Tuesday for local attorney

jgibbs@acnpapers.com

Funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon in Fort Worth for Southlake attorney Ronald Cary Eddins, 41, who was killed with two other people in a one-car accident in Irving during the early morning hours of Wednesday, Jan. 4.

Irving police said that Eddins and his two passengers, Kenneth Lark, 23, and his girlfriend Kaat Debeuckelaer, 21 died as a result of blunt force trauma when Eddins' four-door Porsche Panamera ran off the road near the intersection of Northwest Highway/Spur 348 and Riverside in Irving and into the canal there.

Lark was a UT graduate and Debeuckelaer was a student down there, according to a report from an Austin TV station.

"Investigators are still looking into this accident," said Irving police officer John Argumaniz, a spokesman for the department. "At this point, we believe speed was a factor in the accident but we are still trying to find out if alcohol played a role in the death of these three individuals."

Argumaniz said that there were no beer cans or any other evidence of alcohol in the Porsche and that it would take two to three weeks before police would have the results of the toxicology tests.

Police said that they don't suspect foul play but investigators are still looking into the circumstances surrounding the accident.

"We don't have a lot of information to release at this time but, what we do know is that Ronald Eddins met Lark and Debeuckelaer at the Hilton Hotel in Southlake. The young couple had gone to a Dallas Stars hockey game and had then gone to the Hilton Hotel, where they met Eddins. From the information that we have gathered, Eddins and the couple did not know each other prior to meeting at the Hilton Hotel."

Then, sometime between midnight and 1 a.m. on Wed., Jan. 4, Eddins, Lark and Debeuckelaer left the Hilton and went to The Men's Club, a strip club at 2340 West Northwest Highway in Dallas.

Argumaniz said that witnesses at the club told police that Eddins, Lark and Debeuckelaer were at The Men's Club from 1 a.m. until about 2:45 a.m.

"A resident close the canal where the accident occurred told investigators that they heard a loud crash about 2:55 a.m. that morning, which is consistent with when investigators think that the accident happened," Argumaniz said.

Some 12 hours later, workers from the Dallas County Water Utilities and Reclamation District discovered Eddins' wrecked Porsche in the canal about 2:40 p.m. as they were performing routine maintenance. They noticed guard rail damage and vehicle debris, Argumaniz said.

"it appears that the car was traveling west on Northwest Highway, just west of Riverside Drive, when it hit a curb, went down the embankment and hit a guard rail that protects the canal," Argumaniz said. "Based on the damage, it appears that speed was a factor, but we can't say that for sure at this point. We still have to do more mapping to see if there were other factors. But the car left the roadway, and it was traveling at a high rate of speed."

Argumaniz said Eddins was the driver of the vehicle and that Debeuckelaer was in the passenger's seat. Lark was apparently ejected from the car.

"We later received that there may have been a third person in the car," Argumaniz said. "So we contacted the Lewisville Fire Department's dive team [Thursday] morning, and we found the third body in the canal."

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