A Baton Rouge woman fired up over road rage began a deadly racing duel with another car and now stands convicted of five counts of negligent homicide homicide in the case of five innocent victims who haplessly got in the way of the two careening vehicles. The other driver of the dueling autos also is slated for his own day of reckoning in court.
Police reports detail the senseless crime. The woman now on trial was driving a sport utility vehicle. She was reported traveling just ahead of a 29-year-old male truck driver, who apparently made several efforts to pass her. This maneuver somehow enraged the driver of the SUV, who recklessly weaved in order to block the truck from speeding by. Witnesses described that the drivers of both vehicles were proceeding without caution in the apparent mindless duel of speed and sudden maneuvers.
The tragic end of the standoff came when the male driver of the truck made a final desperate lunge to pass the SUV, clipping the front of the dodging vehicle. The impact was great enough to propel the truck across the median and into the path of an oncoming Acura containing a driver and four passengers.
Authorities said the truck collided head-on with the Acura and the victims had no chance of survival as the struck vehicle immediately exploded in flames. An off-duty firefighter who witnessed the crash, says the flames were so intense, he couldn’t even approach the car to render assistance.
Two women, ages 29 and 19, and three children, ages 11, seven and three were incinerated in the conflagration. Family members had the gruesome task of identifying the charred remains. Those same survivors were in court to see the defendant burst into tears as the guilty verdicts were read.
Meanwhile, the dueling truck driver has not made it to court, but officials say there is the suspicion that he was driving while impaired. As to the SUV driver, she now faces up to 25 years in prison. The prosecutors signaled happiness that the judge obviously looked not just at the moment of deadly impact but also at the three to four minutes of reckless driving that preceded.
For sure, if the driver of the SUV has wound up in harm’s way of hard jail time, it would be only common sense that the driver of the impacting vehicle obtain the best defense possible to help mitigate his own damages.
9 WAFB, “Woman found guilty of 5 counts of negligent homicide in road rage crash” Jim Shannon, Aug. 09, 2013