WELLFLEET — Two head-on crashes on Route 6 here, one last week and one nearly a year ago, have been handled in strikingly different ways by local and state police.

On Sept. 2, a westbound 2020 BMW sedan crossed the center line near Shepley Wood Products and struck an eastbound 2013 Audi. The next day, Wellfleet police identified the driver of the BMW as Carlos Ibarguen, 60, of Eastham and said he had been charged with negligent operation of a motor vehicle, a marked lanes violation, and driving without wearing required glasses.

The driver of the Audi, Aiden Riggins, 18, of Orleans, and his passenger, Samantha Barrio, 18, of Wellfleet, were taken by MedFlight helicopter to Boston with serious injuries, according to the police. Both had broken bones but were recovering, according to a social media post by Kristen Stetson, Barrio’s mother.

Ibarguen’s passenger, Robert Erikson, 73, of Eastham, was taken to Cape Cod Hospital with serious injuries, the police said.

Police handling of a fatal crash on Route 6 on Oct. 10, 2024 provides a conspicuous contrast.

That morning, Sheila Kelley, 63, of Eastham, who owned a Wellfleet flower shop, was killed when a box truck heading west crossed the center line and struck Kelley’s Toyota Sienna near LeCount Hollow Road.

Wellfleet police put out a press release on Oct. 11 that identified Kelley, noting she was pronounced dead at the scene, but it did not name the driver of the box truck, saying only that he had been taken to Cape Cod Hospital with unknown injuries. He has yet to be publicly named or charged. The release said that the state police accident reconstruction team was called and that state police would lead the investigation.

Wellfleet Police Chief Kevin LaRocco said this week that the state police have handled the case and that his department was not involved.

Kelley’s sister, Margaret Dahill of Eastham, has tried unsuccessfully to get information from the state police about her sister’s death for almost a year. In late August, she filed a wrongful death civil suit in Barnstable Superior Court against the driver, identified in Wellfleet police reports as Alexander Addo, 60, of Worcester, and against 7 Days Logistics, the Taunton company that owned the box truck and employed Addo.

Dahill said she hopes that testimony in the suit will provide her with some answers.

Documents filed by Dahill’s attorney, Bruce Bierhans, include the incident reports produced by local police on the day of the accident as well as handwritten witness statements provided to police. In his report, Wellfleet Det. Michael Allen noted that the section of Route 6 where the crash occurred was a no-passing zone with a rumble strip at the double center line to alert drivers who are drifting over.

Allen, who arrived shortly after the crash, was unable to open the doors of Kelley’s minivan because the impact had crumpled the front end into the interior, pinning Kelley inside. Allen broke the driver’s side window and pushed aside the airbag. He found that Kelley had no pulse, Allen wrote in his report.

A truck driver who was heading east just behind Kelley’s car told Allen that Addo’s box truck had continued straight rather than turning at the bend in the road, fully crossing into the eastbound lane and hitting Kelley’s vehicle head-on.

Addo, who was lying behind his truck talking to a motorist who had stopped, complained of chest pains and was taken to Cape Cod Hospital, where Allen and a state trooper later interviewed him. Addo told the police he had been on the road since 2:30 that morning with a truckload of Amazon deliveries. At the time of the crash, shortly before 7 a.m., he had made his last drop-off in Provincetown and was heading off Cape.

In his report, Allen said Addo “couldn’t explain how he ended up in the eastbound lane while travelling westbound on Route 6.”

A Double Loss

Peggy Dahill and her sister, Sheila, were close. Both lived in Eastham and talked on the telephone daily. In the weeks before Kelley’s death, the pair spent even more time together visiting their mother, Ann Kelley of Truro, whose health was failing.

“My mother died 12 days after Sheila,” Dahill said. “It was a lot, losing my mother and my sister at the same time.”

After the crash that killed Kelley, the state police told Dahill they would reach out to her as their investigation turned up information, she said.

“I didn’t hear anything, so I called them in January, and they told me I had to go online and request the state police records,” Dahill said. She was assigned a case number, but every time she checked online it simply listed the case as “pending.”

Then on Aug. 7, she received an email saying that her request was over 90 days old. “It asked if I was still interested in going forward, and I immediately answered ‘Yes,’ ” Dahill said. Again, she received no updates until a few days ago, when she checked her case online.

“It’s now saying I have to go to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, pay $20, and request a crash report,” she said. Because she was not one of the drivers in the accident, she anticipates difficulty in obtaining the crash report.

“I realize that for most agencies everything’s online,” Dahill said, “but I think that when a fatality has occurred, it would be nice if you spoke to a person.”

In response to a request for information from the Independent, Sgt. Gregory Jones of the state police media relations office referred a reporter to the district attorney’s office as the department investigating the crash.

Danielle Whitney, spokesperson for Cape & Islands District Attorney Robert Galibois, provided the following response in a Sept. 8 email: “We have been advised that the Massachusetts State Police specialized unit, Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section ‘CARS,’ has entered its final stages of review and expects to produce a report to this office before the end of this month. Upon receipt our office will review and determine any appropriate charges in short order.”

The CARS unit is not connected to the district attorney’s office, said Whitney.

The wrongful death suit seeks to recover damages “for the conscious pain and suffering and wrongful death of Sheila Kelley.” But Dahill said it’s not about the money. “My father’s classic comment to my sister and me all our lives was two words: ‘Actions and consequences,’ ” she said. “I’m sorry for the gentleman, but his actions caused my sister’s death. I just want to find out exactly what happened.”