Truck driver sentenced in fatal pileup

KAUFMAN COUNTY, Texas – The truck driver who was charged with five fatalities in a 2025 crash on Interstate 20 in Kaufman County entered a guilty plea and was given a 20-year prison sentence. In court, Alexis Osmani Gonzalez-Companioni entered a plea, ending a case that garnered statewide attention after investigators claimed he fell asleep while operating an 18-wheeler and crashed into stopped traffic close to Terrell. Following the collision on June 28, 2025, a number of cars and commercial trucks were involved in a chain reaction pileup. Gonzalez-Companioni, a Florida resident, admitted to investigators that he had dozed off prior to the collision. A truck carrying three generations of the Fort Worth McKellar family was struck first. Grandfather Billy McKellar, parents Zabar and Shawn, and their 15-year-old son Kason were all instantly killed in the collision.

Nicole Gregory, a Dallas resident, was the fifth person killed in a different Jeep Compass. Gonzalez-Companioni was subsequently charged with several felonies, including manslaughter and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, by a Kaufman County grand jury. More than 700 miles from the scene of the collision, Gonzalez-Companioni was transporting a U.S. Postal Service load that started in Atlanta. He was employed by Hope Trans, a trucking company located in Orlando that has since closed. Gonzalez-Companioni’s guilty plea ends the criminal case, but the crash-related civil litigation is still ongoing.