The children, 8- and 10-year-old boys whose names were not immediately available, and their father, Robert Cobill of 5701 Bayouside Drive in Chauvin, suffered minor injuries. They were taken to Terrebonne General Medical Center.

Brian Pinell, 47, of 702 Aragon Road, was killed after his fleeing car ran off the road travelling southbound into the ditch and struck a culvert, causing his 1994 BMW convertible to flip, said Trooper Gilbert Dardar, a State Police Troop C spokesman.

Pinell was thrown from the car into the yard of the home at 705 Aragon Road and was dead when police arrived.

“I looked, and saw the car flip, then I saw his body flying,” said Katie Naquin, 26, a neighbor who witnessed the accident. “When I ran over there and saw him, I knew there was nothing they could do.”

Pinell left his home on Aragon Road angry, said his friend, Curtis Crochet, 57, of Montegut, after they quarreled about a message left for him by a woman on their an-swering machine.

“He was all mad, but I don’t know who he was mad at,” Crochet said, adding that the two have been lifelong friends. “I was waiting for him here on the porch. It’s disappointing me a lot right now.”

Pinell was not speeding as he left his home heading south on Aragon Road. But police say he then ignored a stop sign at the intersection of Aragon and La. 58, striking the white van that carried Cobill and his two young sons.

The van spun clockwise into the parking lot of Tee-Lee’s Mini Mart. Pinell took off through the parking and fled the accident scene back down Aragon Road toward his home.

Pinell came speeding back down the road with only his emergency lights going and no headlights on, Naquin said. He never made it into his driveway.

Instead, Pinell’s convertible flipped twice after leaving the road on the right hand side and running into the ditch. With its top down, the vehicle ejected him. The smashed car landed right side up in the driveway across the street from his home.

Alcohol is suspected in the crash, Dardar said, but officers are still investigating and won’t know for sure until they receive a report from the coroner.

“He kept to himself,” Naquin said of her neighbor. “I don’t know what happened.”