Early morning crashes on I-15 claimed three lives on Sunday.

A father and an infant girl died in a crash involving three vehicles near New Harmony, Washington County.

The first vehicle, a Range Rover SUV, was heading south on I-15 at about 4:05 a.m. The driver, a relative of a mother, father and two children riding in the SUV, swerved to miss a deer that had walked onto the interstate. He overcorrected, and the SUV ended up rolling several times, coming to a stop in the middle of the road.

The rolling caused the roof and one of the doors to collapse, killing 31-year-old passenger Olegario Angulo of Los Angeles. It also ejected his 4-month-old daughter, Assata Angulo, from the car and killed her. She was not strapped into a car seat.

But it wasn't over yet. A Toyota traveling south hit the front end of the rolled vehicle.

"The driver said he didn't see the vehicle because it was dark," said Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Ted Tingey. The driver, his car having veered into the right emergency lane, jumped out into the road to warn other drivers about the crash scene.

That wasn't enough to stop one more collision.

A pickup truck heading south crashed into the side of the Range Rover, causing minor injuries to the surviving mother, daughter and driver from the SUV. They were transported by ambulance to Valley View Medical Center in Cedar City with non-life threatening injuries.

The pickup truck's occupants, a mother and son, were transported to Intermountain Medical Center in Murray after first being evaluated at Valley View Medical Center. They're expected to survive.

The driver of the second vehicle suffered some neck pain but refused treatment.

It appears everyone involved were wearing their seat belts except the infant, Tingey said.

"Oddly enough, all eight people involved were also from California," Tingey said. He presumed they were heading back there. It is unknown where they were coming from, he said.

The third death involved a semitruck driver who died when his vehicle overturned on the I-15 in Nephi.

Alejandro C. Riebeling, a 44-year-old from Springville, apparently fell asleep just after 4 a.m., said Tingey. He lost consciousness just before exit 222 while driving north from Las Vegas heading to Corinne, Box Elder County.

"There were no skid marks," Tingey said. "He was going the speed limit. There was no alcohol or drugs in his system from what we could tell. By all indications, he fell asleep."

The truck went off the road and went into the center median. It tipped onto its left side and skidded several hundred feet. Riebeling was partially ejected from the vehicle, and died at the crash site. He was not wearing a seat belt.

The truck was carrying 40,000 pounds of vegetable oil, which spilled from the vehicle during the crash. The entire load was declared a loss, Tingey said.

UHP closed I-15's northbound lanes for three hours to clean up the debris.

e-mail: mmcfall@desnews.com