ROCHESTER, Ind.  — A 9-year-old girl and her twin 6-year-old brothers were struck and killed by a pickup truck as they crossed a northern Indiana road to board a school bus before sunrise Tuesday, police said. A fourth child was critically injured and airlifted to a hospital.

 

A Tippecanoe Valley School Corp. bus had stopped and activated its stop-arm on the road near Rochester around 7 a.m., just before a northbound pickup truck slammed into the children as they crossed the southbound lane.

 

Six-year-old twin brothers Xzavier and Mason Ingle and their 9-year-old sister, Alivia Stahl, died at the scene.

 

The rural Rochester residents were students at nearby Mentone Elementary School.

 

State Police said that an 11-year-old boy not related to the deceased siblings suffered multiple broken bones when he was also hit by the pickup. That child, Maverik Lowe, was last listed in critical condition at a Fort Wayne hospital.

 

Tuesday afternoon Indiana State Police arrested the driver of the pick-up 24 year old Alyssa Sheperd of Rural Rochester on three counts of reckless homicide and one court of passing a school bus.