Fort Worth couple with 4 kids killed in crash with street racing vehicle, friends say
Those close to Ben and Meg Arbour, a Fort Worth couple with four young children, received phone calls early Friday morning they never imagined they would get.
Ben and Meg, both 39, were killed a little after midnight in a crash that claimed three lives in total, friends confirmed to the Star-Telegram. Fort Worth police reported two people were in a car, pulling into the 4700 block of West Risinger Road, when one of two vehicles racing in the street crashed into them. The racing vehicle, only occupied by a driver, went into a stone wall and the car flipped over, police said. All three people were pronounced dead on the scene.
The other vehicle that was racing sped away, police said. The driver had not been found Friday.
Though the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office has yet to release the victims’ identities, friends who knew the couple through their deep ties with Fort Worth’s Christian community said they found out the Arbours had died through other friends who ultimately heard from the family. Dusty Deevers, 43, of Elgin, Oklahoma, also spoke with the couple’s 14-year-old daughter over the phone, after he learned the news in a text.
A woman who said she’s Ben’s sister-in-law additionally told the radio station KRLD the two were among those killed in the accident. The station reported the couple were coming back from a date when the crash occurred.
Their sudden deaths, Deevers said, represent the loss of two community members who lived with deep conviction, from their dedication as members of Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth to their commitment to home-schooling their kids. Meg taught their children a classical Christian education, he said, and even sold lesson plan books on a website she operated with two other women called Lesson Plan Ladies. The books on the site focus on subjects like art, geography and the Bible.
Friends of the family and pastors from Wedgwood were at the Arbours’ home on Friday morning with the four kids between the ages of 16 and around 8 or 9, according to Deevers. Their grandparents were on their way into town on Friday morning to be with them, he said.
Deevers was also heading to Fort Worth, with he and his wife loading their six children into the car and setting out on the 183-mile drive.
“It’s been devastating. Ben and Meg were best friends, and they lived their life with one thing in mind and that was the glory of God in Jesus,” he said. “They were faithful in all their friendships and faithful to their church and they are standing in the presence of Christ now.”
Officer Buddy Calzada, a police spokesman, said in an email on Friday, “We send our condolences to the family affected by this tragedy.” The crash was one of four in Fort Worth that occurred overnight that resulted in a total of seven deaths.
Calzada also offered a reminder that street racing is illegal and said “we can’t stress enough the dangers of vehicles racing in public roadways.”
Friends of Meg and Ben were still learning information throughout the day, trying to find out as much as possible and make sense of what happened.
Their main focus was on making sure the children have everything they need as they deal with this tragedy, as well as to remember the loved community members who were lost.
Gary Brumley, the 45-year-old minister of worship at Redeemer Church in Fort Worth, said he was close with the couple when they were going to the church in 2008. He was at their house only about two weeks ago to watch the final presidential debate with a group of people, he said. Ben also wanted to have a discussion with everyone about religion and politics.
“He was the only friend who would call me consistently, and he would call me every two or three weeks, because he just felt it was important to talk, to actually hear your voice,” Brumley said. “That’s the way he related to everyone. People were extremely important to him.”
Both Brumley and Deevers described him as an intellectual full of ideas, who — in addition to working at Sewell Lexus of Fort Worth — was an adjunct professor of philosophy and ethics at Weatherford College. He held a doctorate from the University of Bristol in England and wrote essays in peer-reviewed journals on everything from the nature of time to Christian theology, friends said. He was a part of interfaith dialogues with atheists.
Ben was also a board member at Capturing Christianity, a group focused on making intellectual arguments for Christianity. The organization posted on Facebook that he and his wife were killed in a crash, saying, “He had so much work to do. He had so much love to give.”
Meg was a full-time stay-at-home mom who prided herself on giving her kids a good education, friends said. Dawn Isbell, who became close with her when she went to Redeemer Church, lived a walking distance away from the Arbours’ home in south Fort Worth. She and Meg’s children grew up at the same time.
“She really loved her children and people,” Isbell, 45, said in a phone interview. “She would go the extra mile to make someone feel welcome and to help them out.”
Both Meg and Ben went to Texas A&M, though friends weren’t exactly sure on Friday how they had met. Deevers said he met them when he and Ben were attending Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth 16 years ago.
The two were married for around 18 years, he said, and passed on their love for each other to their children.
Deevers was still trying to come to terms with their deaths, wondering why they had been out the night before when they were hit.
“I could guess, as parents, why they might have gone out, just to take a quick spin or just to go see the city lights,” he said. “They were regularly concerned about the growth of their marriage.”
This story was originally published November 6, 2020 at 8:00 AM.
