Four early-morning crashes leave eight dead

Victims in at least two of the crashes were not wearing seat belts, compelling state police to warn drivers and passengers to be careful as they hit the roads this holiday weekend.

"I’ve been reconstructing crashes for over 20 years, and I can’t remember that many people dying in one night,” said Lieutenant David Wilson of the state police, who are investigating a car crash in Attleboro that killed three people. "I’ve responded to crashes where somebody should have been able to walk away from a crash but instead died because they weren’t wearing a seatbelt.”

The first accident occurred at midnight in Quincy, when one man was killed and five people were injured, one of them seriously, after a chaotic chain of events which police are trying to reconstruct.

Quincy Police Sergeant Michael O'Shea said a man and a companion were driving northbound on Quincy Avenue when the car struck another vehicle coming out of East Howard Street. That crash sparked a series of accidents that involved at least two other cars, O'Shea said.

The man and the passenger in the first car were ejected from the vehicle, and the man was declared dead at the scene. O'Shea said police are not releasing all of the details, such as names, ages, and the makes of the cars involved, until all of the victims' families have been notified. Police later identified the man killed as Michael B. Lally, 19, of Quincy. The cause of the accident is under investigation, O'Shea said.

About an hour later, in Walpole, a 31-year-old man lost control of the Jeep Cherokee he was driving and smashed into a tree on East Street, just beyond the intersection of East and High Plain streets.

The man, identified as Jason Wayne Spurlin of Lake Worth, Fla., survived the crash and was taken to a Boston area hospital. But the three passengers in the car were all killed. They included 20-year-old Anna Dubois and 20-year-old Nicholas Kelly both of Walpole and 23-year-old Amanda Murray of Medfield.

Spurlin was allegedly under the influence of alcohol when he sped off the road, said Walpole Deputy Police Chief Scott Bushway. He was charged with three counts of vehicular homicide by operating under the influence and will be arraigned in Wrentham District Court on Monday, Bushway said. None of the occupants in the Jeep appeared to have been wearing seat belts, he said.

Murray and Spurlin were engaged. Last month, she gave birth to their son, whom the couple named after Spurlin.

“Amanda was a great mother," said Murray's aunt, Kim Murray of Medway. "She was psyched to have her baby.”

Pauline Murray of Medfield, the victim's sister, said, “No frowns when Amanda was around.”

About 2:43 a.m. in Attleboro, a 2003 Mazda sedan carrying four people rolled over at Exit 3 on I-95 North after the driver, a man who was not identified, lost control of the car. The sedan hit several tree stumps before it stopped. The occupants, none of whom wore seat belts, were all ejected from the car. Three of them, including the driver, were pronounced dead at the scene. A male passenger was taken to Rhode Island Hospital, where he was suffering from serious injuries, state police said.

The crash forced police to shut down I-95 North for an hour while they investigated the scene.

The last crash occurred in Sudbury about 6 a.m., when a man driving a vehicle on Boston Post Road lost control of his vehicle and rolled into an embankment. His name, age, and the make of the vehicle were not released because his family had not been notified, said Sudbury Sergeant Richard MacLean.

Speed appears to have been a factor, he said.

Globe Correspondent Hannah McBride contributed to this report.