Jodie Owens and her 13-year-old daughter, Lexi, died after a tornado hit their vehicle near Fairview as severe storms swept northwest Oklahoma.
MAJOR COUNTY, Okla. — A mother with long ties to Utah and her teenage daughter were killed the night of March 5 near Fairview, Oklahoma, when a tornado struck their vehicle as severe storms moved across northwest Oklahoma, family members and authorities said.
The deaths drew grief in two states because the Owens family spent more than two decades in Utah before moving to Oklahoma in 2022. The storm that crossed Major County was later listed by the National Weather Service as an EF2 tornado with a seven-mile path and two fatalities, placing the family’s loss inside a broader severe weather outbreak that battered rural communities and left investigators piecing together the final minutes of Jodie and Lexi Owens’ drive home.
Family members said 47-year-old Jodie Owens had gone to pick up her 13-year-old daughter, Lexi, from a friend’s house Thursday evening and was heading back toward Fairview when conditions worsened. Jacob Zonts, Jodie’s brother in Pleasant Grove, Utah, said she understood the danger and called the children who were already at home to get them into shelter. “Jodie was trying to get them to go to the shelter because she knew a tornado was coming,” Zonts said. He said she did not realize the tornado was already on top of them. During the call, relatives said, the line ended suddenly. Oklahoma Highway Patrol officials told local media that the woman driving near Highway 60 and County Road 2435 was on the phone when contact was lost around 10 p.m., and the pair was reported missing soon after.
Relatives said the mother and daughter were later found after the storm, and the account they have shared has sharpened the loss for family members in Oklahoma and Utah alike. Janelle Bagozzi, Jodie’s sister in Sandy, Utah, said one of the hardest parts has been knowing Jodie’s older children heard the last moments over the phone. Zonts said the vehicle appeared to have been blown off the road, struck a tree, dragged through a field and then thrown about 300 yards. Authorities initially said they were working to confirm whether tornado damage caused the deaths. By the weekend, the victims had been publicly identified as Jodie Owens and Lexi Owens. Family members described Lexi as her mother’s “mini me,” saying she wanted to be wherever Jodie was and shared her music tastes and interests. Lexi was identified in local reporting as a seventh grader in Fairview.
The story has traveled widely in Utah because the Owens family’s roots there ran deep. Relatives said the family lived in Springville for 22 years before moving to Oklahoma for David Owens’ job in 2022. Five of the couple’s eight children still live in Utah, and the family’s center of gravity now stretches between the two states. Jodie was remembered by relatives as a mother of eight and a grandmother of four, with another grandchild due this spring. David Owens said his wife “made me a better person,” while Bagozzi said Jodie’s favorite title was grandmother. Other reports described Jodie as a substitute teacher active in the Fairview school community, at PTA events, church and school activities. Those details turned the deaths from a storm statistic into the collapse of a family routine built around children, school schedules, church life and an extended network that crossed state lines.
Official storm records added a clearer picture of what hit Major County that night. The National Weather Service office in Norman listed a tornado in Major County on March 5 from 8:08 p.m. to 8:26 p.m., rated EF2, with a seven-mile path and two deaths. The agency said research on the March 5 tornadoes is ongoing, meaning details such as exact intensity and path measurements could still change. Early local reports described multiple tornadoes, hail and damaging winds across western and northern Oklahoma. In the Owens case, investigators publicly traced the emergency to the rural area near Highway 60 west of Fairview, where the family’s van was caught during a nighttime storm event that left little room for escape. Gov. Kevin Stitt said he was praying for the family, and local reporting showed emergency crews, troopers and sheriffs’ investigators trying to reconstruct what happened in darkness after communication was lost.
The consequences for the surviving family were immediate and personal. Bagozzi said David Owens, a truck driver who worked weekdays, now has to remain home with the children because Jodie is no longer there to care for them. Relatives said community support began to build almost at once in both Oklahoma and Utah, with fundraisers and memorial plans moving ahead while the family was still absorbing the shock. A GoFundMe was created to help David Owens, the children and funeral expenses. Two memorial gatherings were announced: one on March 14 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Cedar Springs Church of the Nazarene in Fairview, and another on March 21 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meetinghouse in Springville, Utah. David Owens noted that the Utah memorial falls on the couple’s anniversary date, 23 years after they were married in Springville.
For relatives, the public story of the storm has stayed fixed on Jodie Owens’ final act as a mother. Zonts said he considers her a hero because she was trying to protect her children while facing danger herself. Bagozzi described Lexi as inseparable from her mother, a daughter who mirrored Jodie in looks and personality. The family’s comments gave the tragedy a vivid human scale: a phone call in the dark, children at home rushing for shelter, and a mother still focused on them as the tornado closed in. In rural Oklahoma, where night storms can erase distance in minutes, that sequence has become the memory family members are now carrying into two memorials, one in the town where the family had rebuilt its life and one in the Utah community where much of that life began.
The family was preparing this week for the March 14 memorial in Fairview and the March 21 gathering in Springville, while the weather service continued its storm research and loved ones kept raising money for funeral costs and support for the surviving children.
Author note: Last updated March 9, 2026.