By Pat Trevino | May 31, 2026
CUERO, Texas — The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) is investigating a fatal two‑vehicle crash that occurred early Friday morning, shortly after 1:30 a.m., following a police pursuit that began late Thursday night within the Cuero city limits.
According to DPS, a Cuero Police Department officer initiated a traffic stop on a 2016 Ford F‑250 driven by an unlicensed juvenile from Victoria. As the officer approached the vehicle, the driver fled southbound on North Terry Street.
Investigators determined the juvenile driver in the black truck failed to stop at the intersection of North Terry Street and East Broadway Street, where the truck T-boned the 2014 Ford F‑150 driven by Dwayne Kent Morris, 66, of Cuero. Morris had been traveling westbound on East Broadway.
The impact pushed Morris’s vehicle across the oncoming lanes, where it struck a utility pole and came to rest in the front yard of a residence. The fleeing truck also crossed the roadway, overturned, and came to rest upright in the same yard.
Morris was pronounced deceased at the scene by DeWitt County Justice of the Peace Precinct 1 Judge Ruppert at approximately 1:47 a.m. The juvenile driver was transported by Cuero EMS to Cuero Regional Hospital with minor injuries.
An eyewitness who was standing nearby described the crash as sudden and violent, saying they were “about 20 feet from being hit.”
According to the witness, the teen driver “ran from the police and did not stop at the stop sign,” striking Morris’s truck as it traveled down the hill on Broadway. The witness said the red truck was pushed into the yard, missing the home by only a foot. Both vehicles came to rest in the same yard.
The eyewitness reported that the juvenile was able to exit his vehicle and was placed into a patrol car, while Morris remained pinned inside his truck. “Myself and the officer ran over to get to him and had to break the window,” the witness said, adding that Morris had no pulse. Cuero Fire Department used extraction tools to remove him from the vehicle, and EMS personnel performed CPR.
The witness said the experience was deeply unsettling, noting they had nearly been in the path of the collision. “My heart is still going a hundred miles a minute thinking it could have been me if I left my house on time to get to work,” they said.
DPS continues to investigate the crash.