Family members wonder if alcohol played role in fatal crash

UPDATE: Vicki Frea said it was just three weeks ago, over the Fourth of July weekend, when Jason Onsgard asked for permission to take her daughter's hand in marriage while the Frea family was enjoying the holiday at their lake cottage.

Frea, 62, of Pewaukee, Wis., said her husband had the opportunity to emphasize how important faith is to their family before Onsgard dropped to one knee and proposed to their daughter, Becky.

No one would imagine that only weeks later, the newly engaged couple would lose their lives in a tragic car accident, or that investigators would find Becky with a ring still on her finger, but the shiny stone lost.

“I think she went through the windshield and it got twisted,” Frea said. “We miss her deeply, but we know she is with Jesus. She loved the Lord.”

Vicki Frea said her daughter Rebecca “Becky” Frea,  27, of Iowa City, was celebrating her engagement with her fiancé, Jason Onsgard, 29, also of Iowa City, and two of their friends, Heather Althiser, 27, and Joseph Vinopal, 26, another couple visiting from La Crosse, Wis.

All four died when the car's driver lost control while rounding a curve on the Herbert Hoover Highway sometime late Saturday or early Sunday. Investigators haven't yet determined who was driving the car.

Rebecca Frea, Jason Onsgard and Joseph Vinopal were all ejected from the car.

Late Monday, all that remained at the scene was scattered debris, tire marks and two bouquets of memorial flowers, including one signed from the Wildwood Smokehouse and Saloon in Iowa City.

Vicki Frea said police told her that the group was coming from the Wildwood, 4919 Walleye Dr. SE, just outside of Iowa City, where Jason worked part-time as a bouncer and bartender.

“Police told us they had been there earlier,” she said. “We don't know if drinking was involved, but we don't think it was the cause of the accident.”

Vicki Frea described her daughter as a tomboy who loved sports and the outdoors.  She said Becky had worked as a radiologist at the Iowa City Cancer Center for four years, and came to Iowa City right after completing her first internship and graduating with a radiology degree from The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

After meeting at the UW-La Crosse about six years ago, Jason moved to the area a year after Becky, she said. They lived together the past two years.

“She loved, loved, loved her job,” Vicki Frea said. “She was a neat, neat lady with the kindest heart you'd ever know.”

Jason's mother Judy Onsgard, 52, of La Crosse, said Becky was the love of her son's life. Jason loved music, and could play almost any song on any instrument by ear, his mother said. Jason, who loved fishing, was also trying to gain full custody of his 9-year-old son, Judy Onsgard said.

“He (meant) everything to him,” Judy Onsgard said. “He will be very, very missed.”

Heather Althiser's father, Howard Althiser Sr., 58, of Reedsburg , Wis., described his daughter as an outgoing, loving and personable individual who loved being outdoors.

“She was a beautiful girl,” Althiser Sr. said. “She was always out to improve herself.”

Heather worked as a cosmetologist and owned her own massage therapy business in La Crosse, Howard Althiser Sr. said. Heather had been dating Vinopal since March and the pair shared many similar outdoor and recreational interests, but most importantly, he said, they were in love.

Heather ventured to Iowa, with Vinopal, to celebrate the recent engagement of Frea and Onsgard, two of the couple's friends that Heather had met while attending school in La Crosse.

The four friends were good kids that were typical young people out celebrating, Althiser Sr. said.

“They were enjoying each other's company, and unfortunately I think there was a failure to recognize a problem, which I think we've all (experienced),” he said. “These two couples didn't get the break that most of us do.”

Althiser Sr. had heard the curve where his daughter lost her life had a reputation for accidents.

Janett Watt, 56, who has lived at 4660 Herbert Hoover Highway for 30 years, said she's gotten used to replacing her roadside mailbox, and keeps towels and flashlights near her door because so many people have gone off the road near her home.

“If they drop the speed to 35 mph, that would be a tremendous help,” she said. “There is a curve sign, but it's so small and so far back you almost think it's a mistake sitting there … just drop the damn speed!”

Watt said she has approached Johnson County supervisors before about what she feels is a dangerously high speed limit on the curve, but the county told her they straightened the road to solve the problem years before Watt moved in.

“Before we moved in, the road was even curvier, but today the accidents are still happening,” she said. “That (straightening the road) didn't seem to make a difference. The logic doesn't seem to make any sense.”

Iowa State Patrol trooper Mike Hicks said the accident is still under investigation, and officers are trying to determine who was driving the car  that night. Officials are also waiting on reports from the state medical examiner.

The car, a 2009 Nissan Altima, was headed west toward Iowa City on Herbert Hoover Highway sometime late Saturday or early Sunday when the driver didn't make the curve, slid into the north ditch and rolled the car several times.

A farmer found the car and the four victims when he was checking his fencing a little before 8 a.m. Sunday.

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