A truck driver from El Salvador who faces two counts of manslaughter in connection with this week’s horrific, fiery head-on collision on I-70 in Columbia has pleaded not guilty.

Walter Montejo, 26, is also charged with second-degree assault and driving while license suspended. Court documents from Boone County prosecutors say he was driving a truck with a suspended license at the time of the crash.

939 Eagle News was at the Boone County Courthouse on Thursday to watch Montejo’s arraignment, which was broadcast via video from the Boone County Jail. The truck driver wore a jail jumpsuit and spoke to the judge through an interpreter. Montejo told Boone County Judge Kayla Inez Jackson-Williams through his interpreter that he was confused by the driving while suspended charge. He said he thought he had a driver’s license and also tried to get a social security number. Judge Jackson-Williams explained that those were the criminal charges and that Thursday’s hearing was an arraignment.

A court filing from the Boone County District Attorney’s Office states that Montejo is in the United States “temporarily on a work visa.”

The Columbia Police Department’s redacted two-page probable cause statement quotes witnesses driving behind the semi and a BMW before the crash as saying the Freightliner was in the passing lane and the BMW was in the travel lane. Court documents quote drivers driving behind the crash as saying the semi “went into the travel lane and struck the BMW” and the Freightliner was traveling at a high rate of speed before the crash.

According to CPD investigators, the two fatalities were in the rented U-Haul truck. Columbia police said the U-Haul driver, 54-year-old Cindy Helms of Tennessee, was pronounced dead at a local hospital. CPD identified the U-Haul passenger who was killed as 84-year-old Melvina Colin of Colorado, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

Judge Jackson-Williams says Montejo’s next court date will be a bail hearing on Monday at 1 p.m.