{"id":65473,"date":"2026-05-06T20:27:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T00:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=65473"},"modified":"2026-05-06T20:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T00:27:07","slug":"fatal-crash-investigation-37","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/05\/06\/fatal-crash-investigation-37\/","title":{"rendered":"FATAL CRASH INVESTIGATION"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Tuesday, May 5, 2026, at approximately 12:38 p.m., officers responded to a traffic crash in the 1600 block of George Jenkins Boulevard. Just before the crash, a black Nissan SUV was traveling east on George Jenkins Boulevard. At the same time, a yellow motorcycle was traveling west on George Jenkins Boulevard. Upon entering the intersection, the Nissan made a left turn in front of the motorcycle, which impacted the Nissan on the passenger side.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Lakeland Police Department Patrol Units, Polk County Fire Rescue, and the Lakeland Fire Department all arrived on scene to provide life-saving measures. The motorcyclist was transported to Lakeland Regional Health (LRH), where, despite the best efforts of medical professionals, he was pronounced deceased. The driver of the Nissan did not sustain injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of the Traffic Homicide Unit responded to the scene and took over the investigation. The roadway was shut down for approximately two and a half hours while the scene was processed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ufeffThis remains an open and active investigation. If anyone has any additional information regarding the crash, please contact investigating Officer Travis Payne at Travis.payne@lakelandgov.net<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The motorcycle (deceased) driver was identified as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexander Baerhold<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Age 29<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakeland, FL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nissan SUV driver was identified as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leah Sykes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Age: 35<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spring Hill, FL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, May 5, 2026, at approximately 12:38 p.m., officers responded to a traffic crash in the 1600 block of George Jenkins Boulevard. Just before the crash, a black Nissan… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAxOVwvMDZcL2ZhdGFsLWNyYXNoLmpwZz9maXQ9NDAwJTJDMzAwJnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiRkFUQUwgQ1JBU0ggSU5WRVNUSUdBVElPTiIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiZG9pcyIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.1XvQu2IKB59VvEScIprGDBFvJtRnVIGdKubJuAO91R8MQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMTlcLzA2XC9mYXRhbC1jcmFzaC5qcGciLCJ0eHQiOiJGQVRBTCBDUkFTSCBJTlZFU1RJR0FUSU9OIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.U_zYovo6DU6rGmVDNCcVaS8T5NoCxYZ-ZoHqLir7pFoMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65474,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65473\/revisions\/65474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}