Family hopes driver ‘gets locked up forever’ after son killed in crash

EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah — The parents of a 3-year-old boy hit and killed by an allegedly impaired driver in Eagle Mountain hope the driver never sees a day of freedom again. 

“I hope he gets locked up forever,” said a heartbroken father, Jeromey Jackson, when speaking about what happened to his son, Hunter. “There is no reason this accident should have happened at all.” 

Hunter was with his best friend, Odin Ratliff, who was also just 3 years old, at the Cedar Valley Stables in Eagle Mountain when the two were hit and killed. Hunter’s older sister worked at the stables and would often bring them because they liked to see the horses.

They were playing when suddenly investigators say a car driven by Kent Cody Barlow, 25, from Eagle Mountain, came off the roadway, traveling over 100 miles an hour, and smashed through a gated arena and into the stables, landing upside down about 350 feet away. 

Hunter and Oden were killed instantly.

“He was always smiling,” said a tearful Brooke Jackson, Hunter’s mom. “He had the cutest dimples that everybody loved when he smiled. He wanted everybody to be his best friend.”

Brooke was also at the stables when the crash happened just after 7 p.m. Monday. She witnessed the gruesome scene. 

Three passengers were also in the car. All of them, along with the driver, were taken to the hospital, but have been treated and released. 

“One car did all of this. One car speeding did thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage and two little kids are dead,” Brooke said.

Deputies said Barlow, who has a long and dangerous criminal history, was high on meth when he crashed the car. He was also on parole after recently being released from prison.

“What was he even doing out behind the wheel of a car?” Jeromey said. 

“The LifeFlight came for them, the ambulance came for them, and they’re the ones that caused this mess. They shouldn’t get out [of jail]. I don’t get my boy back. You don’t get your life back,” Brooke said. 

Barlow faces ten charges, including two counts of automobile homicide. 

The Jacksons say the road in front of the stables is also a big concern. They say people speed on it all the time, and it’s time for the city to do something.

The owner of the stables, Aaron Wall, said it’s a private road and that all of a sudden equipment showed up one day and started building it.

He said the accident is the result of the very thing he’s been complaining to the city about for a long time.   

“I can’t make sense of it,” Wall said. “Its ruined many lives.”

A GoFundMe* for the two boys can be found here.

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