Kristin Alber and Max Rose texted each other Friday afternoon, an everyday exchange about music and the boredom of a drive through Oklahoma.

Fifteen minutes after those texts, the Ford Explorer carrying Rose, 19, as well as Theresa Dougherty, 19, and Adrian Doggrell, 21, flipped three times and caught on fire along Interstate 35 near Tonkawa, close to the Kansas border.

Rose, the son of noted Memphians Gayle Rose and Mike Rose, was sitting in the back seat. A police report said he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, and was thrown from the car.

He suffered severe external and internal injuries, and died Saturday night at a Wichita hospital. Dougherty, Rose's girlfriend, and Doggrell were released from an area hospital.

The police report indicates the Explorer left the road for unknown reasons, leading Dougherty to overcorrect three times, causing it to roll.

The three were en route to the University of Denver, where Dougherty and Doggrell attended. Rose had spent his freshman year there before transferring to Rhodes College, and planned to spend a couple of weeks in Denver with friends before returning to Memphis.

The night before he left, Rose gave Alber a CD of a band called Cloud Cult. He texted to see what she thought of it.

"I said that I really enjoyed his taste in music. He was glad he could share something with me," said Alber, 19. "We texted about how boring the state of Oklahoma was to drive through. He told me the ride was going swimmingly. He asked me how my day was going."

Rose's family and friends mourned the loss of a "gentle giant" Sunday, as word spread of his death.

"(His story) should be called 'The Gentle Giant.' He was 6-7 and was the sweetest angel on this earth," said his mother, Gayle, a local civic leader and part of the team that brought the Grizzlies to Memphis. His father is a prominent booster at the University of Memphis as well as chairman of First Horizon National Corp., the parent company of First Tennessee Bank.

His friends all emphasized Rose's love of music.

"His iTunes list just had more music than I could even fathom. He loved going to see shows," said McCauley Williams, his close friend from their days at Memphis University School.

Added Preston Battle, another high school friend: "Music definitely fueled Max's soul. He really became attached to people through a mutual love of music."