'Life is not promised': Family and friends mourn loss of Richland teen in car crash

In June, Ellie Tourney had to bury her husband. Now, she has to bury her son.

“We were proven twice that life is not promised. We’ve learned that twice in seven months,” Tourney said Wednesday. “If God wants you, he’s going to wrap you in his arms. It’s hard to accept, but we’re going to get through it one moment at a time.”

Jonathan Tourney, 14, of Richland died about 4:30 a.m. Saturday — two days before Christmas — after a speeding car in which he was riding with five other passengers crashed at a McCandless intersection. Another passenger — Taylor Orlowski, 18, of Baden — also was killed.

David Tourney, 62, Ellie’s husband and Jonathan’s father, died in June from a brain tumor.

Jonathan’s family has said it doesn’t want to talk publicly about the circumstances of Saturday’s car crash or Jonathan’s death. Instead, they want to focus on the details of his life.

His athletic appetite knew no bounds.

A speedy starting wide receiver for Pine-Richland High School’s junior varsity B team, Jonathan inherited his long legs from his mother, an avid marathon runner.

Jonathan would bike around his family’s one-acre property and on trails throughout his native Richland. He liked to frequent a Butler County dirt-bike track. Jonathan also roller-bladed, ice-skated and loved to ski. He even dabbled in baseball.

Jonathan’s father understood his teenage son’s thirst for sports. Just weeks before he died, he gave Jonathan one last gift: a new mountain bike. Jonathan recently bought a GoPro camera to mount on it.

Born in Pittsburgh on May 15, 2009, Jonathan was the Tourney’s second son.

Jeffrey Tourney, Jonathan’s older brother, thinks more technically or methodically than his brother did, Ellie Tourney said. The Pine-Richland High School alumnus, now 18, followed in his father’s career footsteps, taking an HVAC service job at the Pittsburgh-based mechanical contractor McKamish Inc.

Jonathan took after his mother and was more outgoing, often flashing a picture-perfect smile, Ellie Tourney said.

“His smile just blew you away,” she said. “He had the most beautiful smile you can imagine.”

If Ellie Tourney needed any evidence of her younger son’s social tendencies, she didn’t need to look much past his freshman year, which started this fall at Pine-Richland High School.

“He was like the mayor there. He loved it,” Ellie said. “A lot of kids say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be at school,’ but he loved it. He loved the attention.”

Joe Merhaut has lived next door to the Tourneys for the boys’ entire lives. He said the boys “were always outside playing — they never stopped.”

Merhaut grew up one of nine children in Richland decades ago, when much of the North Hills was covered in farmland and there was one traffic light between Mars and Cranberry. After living in Plum, he and his wife, Rhonda, moved back to Richland in 1972.

“(The Tourneys) were like family to us — and they’re still like family to us,” said Merhaut, 59, who recently retired after teaching special education at Slippery Rock University for 23 years. “I have three daughters. Jeffrey and Jonathan were the sons I never had.”

Jonathan’s longtime neighbor is not looking forward to Thursday. He plans to deliver the eulogy at the teen’s funeral service, in the same room and at the same funeral home when he read a eulogy for Jonathan’s father this summer.

“Jonathan, he was a special kid,” he said. “We’re going to miss him so dearly.”

David’s death also left an impression on his sons, Ellie Tourney said. Jonathan matured a lot as he and Jeffrey cared for their dying father, helping to lift him in and out of his wheelchair, among other things.

The two brothers were close for many years and bonded over the little day-to-day rituals, like playing a game of catch every day in their backyard.

“There wasn’t a day that went by that his brother and him didn’t throw each other a football,” Ellie Tourney said.

Football played an outsize role in Jonathan’s life.

While he did play youth football, Jonathan really started to throw himself into refining his wide-receiver skills on the JV-B team, said Sam Heckert, a linebacker on Pine-Richland High School’s varsity squad.

Heckert and other older players agreed among themselves to keep an eye out for Jonathan after his father’s death. High school junior Tanner Cunningham, a varsity wide receiver, started to drive Jonathan home from school regularly.

“I really gravitated toward him because he was such a hard worker and always had a smile on his face,” said Heckert, 17, a junior from Pine. “A few of the captains, we tried to take him under our wings.”

Jonathan didn’t need a lot of pampering, though, Heckert said. On his first day of team practices last summer, Jonathan showed the high school coaching staff, as well as other players, a bit about his athletic potential.

“He was always flying around,” Heckert said. “The coaches knew they had to get him on the field.”

Community support for the family has shined through in a GoFundMe account that Merhaut set up to help the Tourneys with funeral expenses. Nearly 1,500 people have donated since Saturday, raising more than $118,000 on a $30,000 goal.

Houdini Farms, the Butler County facility where Taylor Orlowski, the other teen killed in the car crash, trained as an equestrian, also launched a GoFundMe account in the memory of the late teenager a day after the car crash. Donations will fund “a perpetual trophy within the Western Pennsylvania Professional Horseman’s Association in her honor, a prestigious award that will be presented to a particular junior rider that emulates her legacy each year.”

“We would like to remember Taylor’s love for her horses, Lydell and Tom,” Houdini Farms wrote. “Taylor was always dedicated to hand-grazing her horses out in the front field. Her commitment to her horses’ well-being was always noted, and we plan to honor this by a bench and tree in her honor on the Houdini Farms property.”

Students built makeshift memorials to Jonathan outside his family’s home. Several Pine-Richland High School football players wrote their names and jersey numbers on luminaries and placed them in the yard.

A vigil Tuesday outside Pine-Richland High School’s football stadium, which Heckert helped organize, drew a crowd of hundreds. Ellie Tourney attended, wearing Jonathan’s No. 14 jersey.

Some spoke, some lit candles. Heckert closed the vigil with a prayer.

“Heavenly father, we lift up our broken hearts to you in this time of loss. Fill us with your peace even when it feels unbearable,” Heckert said. “As the days go by, may this family continue to feel your presence and grace, reassured that the memory of Jonathan will continue to stay alive through us all.”

The Tourneys will receive friends from 2 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Schellhaas Funeral Home and Cremation Services, 5864 Heckert Road, Richland. Services will follow the visitation hours at the funeral home.

Burial will take place at noon Friday in Allegheny County Memorial Park.