By LEONARD GRAY

NORCO – The two Norco boys had never seen a car flipped upside-down in Engineers Canal before, and they dashed to the nearby Shell convenience store Friday afternoon to report it.

It was only the first of three fatal traffic accidents investigated in the River Parishes on Jan. 4.

When a store employee investigated the boys’ claim, the 911 call brought deputies and firefighters to the scene in minutes. However, Renalda M. Young, 23, of Destrehan, was apparently long dead, having likely drowned in the canal 12 hours earlier, pinned in her vehicle.

Michael Crook, 10, and his brother, Thomas, 8, were shocked at the discovery. “They got an accident over there!” Michael said he told the convenience store clerk at 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 4.

Investigators from Louisiana State Police Troop B determined the 1982 AMC Concord, driven by Young, went into the canal off eastbound Airline Drive, just as she came off the Bonnet Carre Spillway bridge coming into Norco some time soon after 7 p.m. on Jan. 3.

That was the time her husband, Alton Young, last spoke with her on her cellular telephone. He and other family and friends had been searching for her, without success, ever since. However, the reason why she veered off the road and without ever applying her brakes along 40 yards of the grassy area, tipped over into the 12-to-14-foot-deep canal remained a mystery.

The depth of the water was not determined at the time of the discovery of Young’s body within the car.

Speed was not a factor in the accident, added Trooper Omar Landrum, who added that a preliminary report indicated Young had drowned.

The mother of the boys who found Young’s body are recovering from the experience. “The youngest has been having some bad dreams,” said Linda Crook, and added a school counselor would talk with him. The older son “thinks about it a lot but it’s not bothersome.”

She added, though, that in the future the boys would find a new route to the store.

Landrum continued that a toxicology report and autopsy report were still pending.

In an unrelated incident on the same day, Suzanne Slaton, 53, of 125 St. Gertrude St., Des Allemands, died in a fatal accident.

Slaton had been westbound on Old Spanish Trail at 7:30 p.m., near its intersection with Ridge Road, when her 2001 Ford Expedition entered the sharp turn, skidded off the road, became airborne for a short distance and spun onto its right side.

Slaton, not wearing a seat belt, was pronounced dead at West Jefferson Hospital in Marrero at 8:56 p.m.

Finally, in yet another unrelated incident also on Jan. 4, a LaPlace man walking across Airline Highway in LaPlace was struck and killed at about 11:30 p.m.

Jason Greenlee, 24, of 260 Concord Drive, wearing dark clothing according to the report from Louisiana State Trooper Chris Anderson, was walking along, tried to cross Airline and stepped into the path of an oncoming 1997 Mercury Sable.

The car, driven by Laterence Mitchell, 29, of 203 Post St., Killona, was eastbound at the time of the accident. Neither he nor his passenger, Desiree Mitchell, 28, were injured.