A teenage mother whose husband filed for divorce two weeks ago committed suicide Tuesday by deliberately driving her sports car into the path of a delivery truck on a Johnson County farm road, Joshua police reported Thursday.
Courtney Moss, 17, of Joshua was pronounced dead at the scene on Farm Road 917.
Moss was married and had a 3-month-old son, Joshua Police Chief Annabeth Robertson said.
It was the third teen suicide in Johnson County since October.
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Moss and Christopher Roberts were married in July, Johnson County records show. A baby was born on Jan. 6. The records state that the couple stopped living together March 2, and Roberts, whose age was not listed, filed for divorce March 24.
The baby was in the care of Moss' mother, Charmin Trammell, on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the records.
But, during a court hearing Thursday in Cleburne, state District Judge John Neill approved a request that the baby be placed with Roberts.
Suicidal messages
A friend of Moss' called police at 12:56 p.m. Tuesday to report that Moss had sent her messages indicating that she intended to end her life, Robertson said.
Five minutes after receiving the call, police got a call about a two-vehicle wreck on Farm Road 917, Robertson said.
At 1:14 p.m., a Joshua officer arrived at the friend's home.
"Miss Moss had sent [the friend] three text messages: one telling her to look at her MySpace page; another stating that she loved her; and a third telling her to look in her black mailbox," Robertson said.
The mailbox at the friend's home contained a suicide note, Robertson said.
"It was signed by Miss Moss," she said.
Emergency responders arrived at the wreck at 1:09 p.m. They learned that Moss had driven her 1992 Mazda Miata head-on into a Dr Pepper delivery truck.
"It's very sad for everyone involved," Robertson said.
The driver, a 26-year-old Watauga man, did not appear to be injured but was taken to a Fort Worth hospital for evaluation, the Texas Department of Public Safety reported.
He told investigators that the Miata veered into his path and that he did not have time to react, according to the DPS.
Moss was a student at the Joshua Alternative Learning Center, school Superintendent Ray Dane said.
Dane said he heard that Moss was hoping to enroll in a cosmetology program at the Hill College Johnson County Campus in Cleburne.
In the other Johnson County suicides, Jon Carmichael, 13, hanged himself last month in a barn near his home near Cleburne. In October, Hunter Layland, a 15-year-old freshman at Cleburne High School, shot himself. In both cases, the families blamed bullying by classmates.
BILL MILLER, 817-390-7684
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