Crawfordsville, IN : 18-year-old Kankakee woman killed in a two-vehicle accident on Interstate 74 near Crawfordsville on Monday, Nov 30, 2015

An 18-year-old woman from Kankakee was killed in a two-vehicle accident on Interstate 74 near Crawfordsville, Ind., just two days before Thanksgiving.

Jesse Lee Saltzgiver was a backseat passenger in a car driven by a 24-year-old man from Danville. Saltzgiver was pronounced dead at the scene, according to an Indiana State Police news release.

"She was a phenomenal singer," said her adoptive father, Robert Smith said. "She loved to sing and dance.

"She was my wife's niece, but we adopted her. She was pursuing music, and she was in the process of finishing up a project. That was her passion."

The accident occurred on eastbound I-74, five miles west of Crawfordsville.

Another back seat passenger, a 23-year-old woman from Danville, was transported to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Crawfordsville then airlifted to St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis with life-threatening injuries.

According to the release, the vehicle Saltzgiver was in was hit when the driver tried to merge back into traffic following a tire change. The driver of the van that hit them, along with his passenger, were taken to an area hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

State police and the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department were notified at 9:43 p.m. of the crash, which remains under investigation.

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18-year-old Kankakee woman killed in crash