The teen daughter of bestselling author Michael Lewis of 'Moneyball' and 'The Big Short' and her boyfriend were killed in a head-on collision reports said on Friday. Dixie Lewis, 19, was riding with her boyfriend Ross Schultz, 20, on Tuesday afternoon on state Highway 89 in Truckee, California, when the accident occurred, according to police.
The two were pronounced dead on the scene, according to the California Highway Patrol. Police have launched an investigation into why the couple's sedan crossed into the oncoming lane, but so far authorities do not suspect alcohol or drug use. The driver of the truck received minor injuries.
Horrifying Death
Schultz was at the wheels, while Lewis was in the passenger's seat next to him. The couple was heading north in a 2014 Ford Fusion around 3:20 pm on Tuesday when Schultz crossed into the southbound lanes and hit the Freightliner head-on, killing them both instantly, according to CBS. According to a patrol spokesman, the department has so far refrained from releasing the photos of the crash scene, citing "the sensitive and horrific nature of the accident."
Truckee Highway Patrol is currently looking for witnesses to the crash. "We loved her so much and are in a kind of pain none of us has experienced," Michael Lewis, who is also a financial journalist, said in a statement.
"She loved Ross, with whom she died. She loved to live and our hearts are so broken they can't find the words to describe the feeling. Her mother, Tabitha, and I, and her brother Walker and sister Quinn are going to find ways for her memory to live in her absence."
The 45-year-old driver of the truck only suffered minor injuries. However, authorities haven't revealed the identity of the driver and the reason behind that is still not known.
Gone Too Soon
An investigation has been launched into the accident and California Highway Patrol officials aren't sure why the couple's sedan veered into the opposite lane. However, they don't suspect drugs or alcohol to have been involved.
Financial journalist Michael Lewis is the bestselling author of 'Moneyball', 'The Big Short', 'The Fifth Risk' and most recently, 'The Premonition: A Pandemic Story'. Michael Lewis has also long been contributing to Vanity Fair while his wife, Tabitha Soren, Dixie Lewis' mom, is a photographer who formerly worked as an MTV reporter.
Dixie was known to be a bright student and sportsman in college. She attended Pomona College, where she played softball and planned to study neuroscience. Shultz studied kinesiology at Cal Poly Pomona.
She had just wrapped up her freshman year the couple was vacationing in Lake Tahoe when the crash occurred, Schultz's aunt Lock Schultz Jaeger told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Ross loved his friends and he loved his family and, boy, did he love Dixie, who died with him," she told the outlet.
Pomona College released an additional statement, the outlet also reported, noting that as a freshman, Dixie never had the opportunity to study on campus due to the pandemic.
"There is nothing Dixie wanted more in the world than to be on Pomona's campus and play with her pals on the softball team for Coach Ferguson,' Soren said. 'It was her dream and the culmination of so much training that she kept up with all through lockdown. Her virtual Pomona classmates helped her navigate the two COVID semesters and we will be forever grateful to them for forging bonds with our daughter through mere screens."
Soren, who is still shocked and in trauma, told the outlet that her daughter was a "fighter" who "had a fire in her that people could see when she walked in the room."
"She used her intensity to bring up everyone around her and she tried so hard at everything she did," the heartbroken mom said.
