The attack on a group of Oklahoma high school runners killed three teammates. Two years later, the survivors are still figuring out how to heal.Footprint of Yuridia Martinez embedded in the sidewalk at Memorial Park. Erika Martinez, mother of Yuridia Martinez.When it came time to design the memorial park for the three high-school runners killed in the hit-and-run attack—, not accident—it was Jeff Horn’s job to lead the project.
He kept thinking about the moment before the red F-250 pickup truck turned the corner of East Main Street and the driver, Max Leroy Townsend, redlining the engine, took cold-eyed aim. Investigators later concluded it had been a random act; that Townsend, grieving his own son’s death in a traffic accident the day before, high on rage and booze and Red Bull, would’ve wreaked havoc on whatever crossed his windshield that afternoon.
That experience started her running, and Jani followed her father as he ran road races and marathons around the family’s home in Salt Lake City. She attended Brigham Young University, got married, and moved to Oklahoma. Jani and her husband started their own family, and their oldest child, Joseph, tagged along on his mother’s road races in the way she’d followed his grandfather. Given that background, you’d expect the boy to either hate the idea of running or else fall in love with it.
Seifried remembers Rachel as a developing talent in cross country, although her personality and leadership qualities were what set her apart. “During workouts she insisted on running with the boys,” he says. “‘Rachel,’ I’d kid her, ‘you gotta run with the girls once in a while.’” The previous November, at the cross-country state championship, Joseph ran 17:24 on the 5K course, good for 57th place, which helped Moore finish 12th in the team standings. Rachel’s 21:24 earned her 68th place and supported the girls’ sixth-place team standing.
“Yuridia kept wanting to run with the varsity kids,” Seifried says. “I think she especially looked up to Rachel. She was putting in the work and a few days earlier she’d run a 2:30 800 in practice—she had potential.” On that February day, Seifried relented. “I said ‘OK, Yuridia, today you can run with the big dogs.’”
They started slow, careful to stay on the sidewalk, as a sound like the howl of a jet engine gathered from Main Street behind them. Much louder than the students’ trucks and motorcycles pulling out of the parking lot. Maybe a big recycling rig with a hole in the muffler. The driver was going way too fast but he’d surely brake in front of the school, where the speed limit was only 20.
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