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IOWA – The Iowa State Patrol says nine people died in motor vehicle accidents on Iowa roads over the Memorial Day Weekend, and many of those crashes involved motorcycles.

According to Sgt. Alex Dinkla with the Iowa State Patrol, the accidents happened between 6:00 p.m. May 27^th and 6:00 a.m. May 31^st.

The fatal crashes happened in seven Iowa counties:

• Adair – Jay Thysen, 56, of Elk Horn was operating a motorcycle Monday that slowed and stopped on southbound Highway 25 and signaled to make a left turn. The driver behind him, 20-year-old Liam Reiner of West Des Moines was distracted by a large gathering on the east side of the road and struck the motorcycle, pushing it into a northbound vehicle. Thysen was pronounced dead at the scene. His passenger, 60-year-old Karen Thysen was transported by air ambulance to Mercy in Des Moines.
• Black Hawk – Three people were killed in a crash Monday morning in Waterloo. Police say a semi-truck slammed into a car just before 10:00 a.m. near the South Hills Golf Course. The driver of the car and the two passengers were killed. Police did not release any information about the semi-driver. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
• Dubuque – Angelyssa Lee, 18, of Epworth was driving a minivan westbound on Millville Road around 7:10 p.m. Sunday when she lost control and the van entered the ditch and rolled. Lee was pronounced dead at the scene. A passenger was taken to Mercy in Dubuque for injuries.
• Madison – Michael Green, 61 of Winterset was operating a motorcycle northbound on US Highway 169 when he hit another motorcycle in front of him that had slowed down. Greene was transported to a Des Moines hospital by air ambulance, where he died from his injuries.
• Marion – Holly Hegwood, 37, of Knoxville was operating a motorcycle Monday on eastbound McKinber Street, just west of Willets Drive when she lost control and crossed over into oncoming traffic, hitting a pickup truck. She was transported to the Knoxville Hospital but did not survive.
• Montgomery – Jeanine Schomburg-Gourley, 66, of Stanton was a passenger on a trike that was traveling westbound on Highway 34 Saturday morning when a gust of wind pushed the vehicle off the road and it collided with a cable barrier and rolled. Schomburg-Gourley was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the trike, Wendell Gourley, was transported by air ambulance to the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
• Pottawattamie – Delbert Barge, 72, of North Platte, NE died in a crash on eastbound I-80 Sunday morning just before 11:00 a.m. An SUV towing a camper was in the left lane and the driver lost control, and struck a truck towing a camper in the right lane. Barge was a passenger in the SUV and died at the scene. The driver of the SUV, 66-year-old Andrea Barge, was transported to a local hospital for treatment.

There was also a fatal accident on private property in rural Plymouth County Monday involving a UTV. Nineteen-year-old Zoey Cason, of Sioux City, was driving a two-seat UTV with four people in it at 12:20 a.m. when the accident happened. The UTV was headed downhill when Cason braked and tried to turn to avoid hitting a fence. The vehicle rolled and Cason suffered fatal injuries. Because it happened on private property, it is not included in the total number of statewide deaths on Iowa roads from the holiday weekend.

On Tuesday, the Iowa Department of Transportation updated its total number of traffic fatalities for the year, to date, to 121.