Fiancee recalls Nevada corrections officer killed in US 95 crash

Ashley Peabody expected her fiance to be at work Tuesday afternoon when she sent him a text message with two heart emojis.

But Nathanial Poulopoulos didn’t get to read Peabody’s last message.

The Clark County coroner’s office identified Poulopoulos on Wednesday as the state corrections officer who was killed when he rear-ended a Nevada Department of Transportation truck Tuesday. The 28-year-old’s death was ruled an accident from blunt force injuries.

“Sometimes I’m not feeling anything, and sometimes I’m feeling it all,” said Peabody, who goes by the nickname Keelin, in an emotional interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Wednesday evening.

Peabody and Poulopoulos had planned to marry in January 2021, she said. Peabody described her fiance as a creative, caring “big brother type.”

The Nevada Highway Patrol said that just before 12:20 p.m. Tuesday, Poulopoulos hit the back of an NDOT truck driving slowly on the left shoulder of northbound U.S. Highway 95, near Kyle Canyon Road, during freeway maintenance. He died at the scene.

Poulopoulos had worked for the Nevada Department of Corrections for 16 months, said department spokesman Scott Kelley. He worked at Three Lakes Valley Conservation Camp in Indian Springs and was on his way to work when the crash occurred, Kelley said.

Poulopoulos enlisted in the Nevada National Guard in 2008 and was first deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 after graduating from Del Sol High School, according to a post on the Nevada National Guard’s Facebook page. His other deployment destinations included Kuwait and Iraq.

The post called him “a witty, intelligent, caring person who was as quick with a joke as he was to help a comrade.”

Poulopoulos had been honorably discharged but still “belonged to the Army,” family friend Jonathan Barton said in an email Wednesday.

Peabody said they were raising two daughters from previous relationships: 10-year-old Esmae and 5-year-old Serana.

She said the two met through a group dedicated to live-action role playing, also called LARPing. She said both were done with dating and wanted someone to start a family with.

They started dating a few months after joining the LARPing group around late 2016, she said.

“I was just always sitting with him,” Peabody said. “He was always helping with my character stuff. He was a joy to talk to.”

Poulopoulos had a lot of experience with LARPing and loved making his own costumes and creating backstories for his characters, Peabody said. He frequently went to Natural Twenty Games, a Las Vegas tabletop game store where Peabody works, to play Dungeons and Dragons.

Peabody said she was new to LARPing when she met Poulopoulos. As he did with all new players, Poulopoulos helped show her the ropes.

“He just knew how to make a story and make a character that was meaningful to the game, and he included people,” she said. “He liked to include them in things that he was doing and draw the quiet people in.”

He also spent time as a military recruiter. That job was rough on him, Peabody said, so he applied with the Department of Corrections.

Eventually, Poulopoulos wanted to move up in the department to work with inmates’ health concerns, similar to what he did in the National Guard as a behavioral health specialist, Peabody said.

“He really put a lot of effort into people’s mental health,” she said.

Peabody said she felt like Poulopoulos was safer working at the lower-security camp than in a prison. But when she got the call from his work Tuesday, she knew something was wrong.

Earlier that day, after texting “I love you,” Poulopoulos messaged Peabody asking about her day. It was a normal conversation held before a long drive that Poulopouls had taken hundreds of times.

“Around that point I texted him two little heart emoji things, and he never got to read them because he never made it to work,” Peabody said Wednesday evening, her voice shaking.

A Facebook donation page has been set up to raise money for Peabody and the two girls. As of Wednesday evening, the page had raised $3,095 of its $10,000 goal.

The Highway Patrol was looking to talk to anyone who witnessed the crash. Anyone with information may contact troopers at 702-432-5084.

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter. Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.