‘Her children were her life’: Family mourns mom, two sons killed in crash

The deaths of a 29-year-old woman and her two young sons in a crash this month have brought “unimaginable devastation” to her grieving family members, the woman’s aunt wrote in an online fundraiser.

“It’s devastating,” Kimberly Campbell wrote in emails to the Review-Journal. “I’m not even sure the shock has worn off yet.”

Malia Hoenshell and her boys Zaiden Grandon, 9, and Phoenix Henley, 3, of Henderson, were killed in a March 20 crash.

According to the Clark County coroner’s office and Nevada Highway Patrol, the northbound 2022 Hyundai Tucson the three were traveling in on U.S. Highway 93 north of Interstate 15 crossed over into the southbound lanes near mile marker 59 at about 3:50 a.m., colliding with a semi-truck.

Police said in a news release Monday that it wasn’t known why the Tucson crossed into the oncoming lane. The coroner ruled the deaths to have been accidental.

A GoFundMe organized by Campbell, 49, of Las Vegas, had raised more than $14,000 toward a goal of $20,000 as of Wednesday.

Campbell said it was too difficult to speak by phone. She agreed to share her thoughts on the tragedy and memories of her niece and the two boys by email. She also provided email and text message comments from Hoenshell’s mother, Ellie Hoenshell, 45, of Leland, N.C., as well photos of Hoenshell, Grandon and Henley.

“Her children were her life,” Ellie Hoenshell said in a text about her daughter. Zaiden was “very personable, loving, thoughtful, sensitive, well-mannered, playful and full of life” while Phoenix was a “sweet, loving, energetic little boy, who was always playful, full of life, and never stopped,” Ellie Hoenshell wrote.

“Spunky, little Phoenix! What firecracker!” Campbell added about the 3-year-old boy. Zaiden loved going to church and was set to be baptized on Easter Sunday by his own choosing, she added.

Hoenshell had graduated Coronado High School in Henderson in 2013 and was about to start at Northwest Career College in April because she wanted to become a nursing assistant. She also went to church regularly with the two boys and “loved them with everything she had,” Campbell wrote.

“She was a beautiful, single mother of two handsome and loving boys,” Campbell wrote.

The family, in mourning, was doing as well as can be expected, Campbell said. She was grateful that they “have an awesome tribe for support” and said the family has really come together in the wake of the crash.

Campbell said that all of the money raised by the GoFundMe will go towards funeral and burial expenses. The support has been humbling and overwhelming, she added.

“We would also like to send prayers to the semi-truck driver who was also affected by this accident,” Campbell wrote. “We hope they are doing well.”

Contact Brett Clarkson at bclarkson@reviewjournal.com.