MONROE - Investigators have determined that the car a 15-year-old boy was driving Saturday when it went out of control on a sharp curve along Bluebush Road, just west of Reinhardt Road in Frenchtown Charter Township, before striking a tree, killing him and a passenger, was going nearly 90 mph, Monroe County Sheriff Tillman Crutchfield said yesterday.

Kyle Sexton, 15, of South Rockwood, Mich., died Sunday in St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center after the crash about 2 a.m. that also killed his front-seat passenger, Megan Hildebrand, 16, of Carleton, Mich.

The Lucas County Coroner's Office has scheduled autopsies for today to determine the teenagers' causes of death.

A second passenger, Brennen LaBeau, 15, of Monroe Charter Township, remained in critical condition yesterday in St. Vincent, a hospital spokesman said.

Sheriff Crutchfield said the veteran deputy who initially came in contact with young Sexton's car, Lt. Troy Goodnough, was working overtime under a state grant to search for intoxicated drivers. He saw the Sexton vehicle when it made a wide right turn at North Dixie Highway and Stewart Road.

Lieutenant Goodnough followed the vehicle west on Stewart for nearly a mile as it weaved within its lane and drove over a curb, all the time traveling well below the posted speed limit, the sheriff said.

The lieutenant tried to stop the vehicle in the driveway of the Meijer store at Stewart and Telegraph Road when the Sexton youth sped away, jumping a curb in the process. By the time Lieutenant Goodnough traversed the parking lot and got back onto Stewart, the car was a quarter to a half-mile away and traveling at a high rate of speed, the sheriff said.

Two other deputies who were investigating the scene of an earlier fire along Stewart, west of Telegraph, saw the Sexton youth's car speed by just seconds before the crash, Sheriff Crutchfield said.

Monroe County Prosecutor William Paul Nichols said his office is reviewing the crash.

First Published August 21, 2007, 10:00 a.m.