More details today following a violent, motorcycle-to-motorcycle head-on crash in Joshua Tree National Park Sunday afternoon. Base officials say the man killed was a Marine stationed at the Twentynine Palms base. Corporal Elmer VanHoorebeke Jr., 27, was an electrical system technician with VMU-1 who deployed to Afghanistan in 2012. VanHoorebeke was driving a Yamaha sport bike south and collided with Patricia Root, 62, of British Columbia, who was riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle north, about 1 1/2 miles from the Joshua Tree entrance into the park at 1:50 p.m. Root died at the scene; VanHoorebeke died a few hours later at the hospital. VanHoorebeke is the 28th High-Desert Marine to die in an off-duty vehicle crash since 2007 and the eighth to die while riding a motorcycle.
MAN KILLED IN MOTORCYCLE HEAD-ON CRASH IN JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK WAS A MARINE
