Driver of Car That Killed Adventist Principal Dies

By Andrew McChesney, news editor, Adventist Review

The 80-year-old driver of a car that broadsided a van, killing a Seventh-day Adventist principal and two children on Oct. 6, has died in an Indiana hospital shortly after hundreds of mourners attended a funeral for the trio.

Jack Reed, who ran a red light and hit the van driven by Indianapolis Junior Academy principal Norris Ncube, who was taking five children to school, died around 2 a.m. Monday in the IU Health Methodist Hospital, the Indianapolis Star newspaper reported.

Police investigators are carrying out toxicology tests but say Reed may have suffered a medical condition. His family suspects a stroke.

Hours before his death, scores of people filled the 1,200-seat auditorium at Broad Ripple High School on Sunday to say goodbye to Ncube; his 12-year-old son, Joshua Ncube, and his 5-year-old niece Malia Siziba.

“He truly was a good man. Nothing being said about him is lies,” another niece, Kimberly Sibanda, said of her uncle, local WTHR television reported. “He really was a good man. … He’s sorely missed, but he did live. … He didn’t just exist, he lived.”

Mourners also gathered around Ncube’s wife to comfort her. Their daughter, Jessica, the 12-year-old sister of Joshua, remains in the hospital but is slowly recovering, media reports said.

Read “Adventist School Reopens After Tragic Deaths of Principal and 2 Children”

A gofundme page created to help the family with medical expenses has raised more than $31,000.

The other two children in the accident, a sixth grader and an eighth grader, are recuperating at home with broken bones.

Indianapolis Junior Academy, an Indiana Conference-owned school with 85 students from kindergarten through eighth grade, closed for nearly a week after the accident.

Teachers now are using Bible-based songs to help the young students come to grips with what happened.

“One of them in particular has to do about going home,” Phillip Prime, a colleague of Ncube at the academy, told WISH television. “It’s a story of going back home and seeing the familiar places.”