A Bartow father and his two young children were killed, and the children's mother seriously injured, in a single-car accident in Brandon early Sunday morning.

BRANDON — A Bartow father and his two young children were killed, and the children's mother seriously injured, in a single-car accident in Brandon early Sunday morning.



Ronald L. Green II, 31, was driving a four-door 2005 Maserati when he lost control of the vehicle about 2:25 a.m. and entered the median from the northbound lane of Interstate 75 near an overpass at Woodberry Road, north of State Road 60, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.



The car plowed through the guardrail and hit a concrete wall, then tumbled over the side of the overpass and slid down the inclined side of the structure before catching on fire.



The two children, Sariyah Green, 9, and Ronald L. Green III, 5, were buckled in the back seat.



Green and Tiffany Lasha Young, 26, had been flung from the vehicle, FHP reported. Young was severely injured and taken to Tampa General Hospital.



Speed and alcohol were factors in the accident, said FHP Sgt. Steve Gaskins.



Ronald L. Green was a longtime resident of Polk and Hillsborough counties. He had attended Howard W. Blake High School in Tampa where he was a standout defensive player on its football team. He attended college at Mississippi Valley State University, where he was named as a member of the 2000-2009 "All Decade Team" and Eastern New Mexico University.



In his earlier years, he was penalized for a series of driving violations, including a DUI conviction in 2006, and had been cited for various violations in Florida, Arizona and New Mexico in 2009, but had no infractions in the seven years since, according to a search of court records.



Although the FHP could not verify the address, the family's last known address was in the 2000 block Dudley Drive, just south of Bartow Municipal Airport.



The children reportedly attended Spessard Holland Elementary School in Bartow.