Jasmine Beasley went to church every Sunday morning, ran some errands and then returned to her mother’s home in Woodstock. Her route was a common one.
But while driving home from the Church of Christ at Woodstock on Sunday, the 19-year-old crashed her mother’s car on I-575.
When Todd Beasley got a call from a random number that day, he picked up and then hung up. When the same number called right back, he stayed on the line this time and anxiously listened.
His daughter was dead. The news broke him.
“I’ve been in shock ever since,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by phone Tuesday.
Jasmine Beasley was driving southbound on the interstate when she lost control of the red 2002 Ford Expedition and crashed near Ga. 92 around 12:30 p.m., Woodstock police said. She was not wearing a seat belt, authorities said, and died on scene. Investigators were at the site for hours working the single-vehicle wreck.
Jasmine was never taken to the hospital. She went straight to the morgue, Todd Beasley said. The family has yet to get a chance to say goodbye as they must now plan her funeral and share the tragic news with family members and friends. A friend set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for the arrangements.
The one thing that is certain is that there will be tulips surrounding Jasmine’s casket, her father said.
Credit: Family Photo
Credit: Family Photo
That Jasmine was killed after going to church is a difficult reality for Todd Beasley to process.
Faith and church became a large part of Jasmine’s life while she was battling kidney cancer as a 6-year-old. Though it was tough for the family to watch as she underwent 10 months of chemotherapy treatments, she did not allow the disease to get in her way and she finally beat it, Todd Beasley said.
“She was weak because of the chemo, but she was stronger than me and her mother,” the father said proudly.
A 2020 graduate of Mount Zion High School in Jonesboro, Jasmine was saving up for her own car or a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and wanted to pay her way through college at Kennesaw State University, her dream school. She was steadily working toward those goals with paychecks from the QuikTrip gas station near her house, and McDonald’s before that. Her father said Jasmine had always wanted to become a veterinarian and often cared for stray animals.
Knowing that his daughter will never be able to fulfill those dreams troubles Todd Beasley. The last time he saw her was in October. Since she was living with her mother, their relationship was mostly phone calls and text messages.
“She kept to herself ... she was quiet,” Todd Beasley said. “But she was a good student. She was a good kid.”
Beasley wished his daughter was wearing a seatbelt when she crashed, a habit he said he always encouraged. Devastated, he has turned to scrolling through pictures of Jasmine every time he gets an urge to call or text her.
“I just see a picture of her on my phone and I just miss her a lot,” he said.
