Decision on charges pending in crash that killed 13-year-old
Black-and-white video from a Summit Township mobile-home park’s surveillance camera filmed the accident that killed 13-year-old Ashley Clark as she walked across Perry Highway to catch her school bus on the morning of Dec. 20.
Erie County District Attorney Jack Daneri said the video, which captured the entire crash, is a key piece of evidence in an investigation that will continue for at least a few more days before prosecutors decide what charges, if any, to file in the case.
A team of Pennsylvania State Police investigators met Friday with Daneri and members of his staff to review and discuss numerous pieces of evidence collected in the nearly monthlong investigation. The meeting ended early Friday afternoon with no decisions, as Daneri said his staff asked state police to clarify “a couple of things” in the case. Daneri’s staff will also continue discussing the matter and examining the law before a decision on charges is made Monday or Tuesday, he said.
Clark, a seventh-grader at Fort LeBoeuf Middle School, died after she and another student, 17-year-old Taz Giannelli, were hit by a car as they walked in a westerly direction across Perry Highway from Popp’s Mobile Home Park to catch their school bus, which was parked in the southbound lane on the east side of the road.
The northbound black Chevrolet Cavalier that hit them on Route 97 was driven by 19-year-old Tyler J. Festa, of Lake City, who was not injured in the accident.
Daneri said the video shot by the mobile home park’s surveillance camera, from the camera’s vantage point at the entrance to the park, shows the school bus’s warning lights on; the children crossing the street; and Festa’s car hitting Clark and Giannelli. it was the first time that investigators have given a detailed description of what the video showed.
The tape was reviewed during a two-hour presentation that state police made to Daneri and his staff beginning at 11:30 a.m. Friday. The group also reviewed diagrams that Daneri said were extensive in terms of measurements of speed calculations, stopping calculations, skid marks and “all of the things pertaining to the vehicles and speeds and the roadway.”
The group also listened to Festa’s taped statement and reviewed written statements by others. They discussed Festa’s cell-phone records, which were obtained through a search warrant; and they reviewed Festa’s toxicology results, which were faxed over to the District Attorney’s Office during the meeting, Daneri said.
“Obviously, we talked about the potential for charges and what, if any, would apply to the facts we saw,” he said.
Daneri and a dozen members of his staff met for about an hour after the state police left to continue their review and discussion, he said.
“We were very much like a jury in there,” Daneri said.
Friday’s review comes as fatal traffic accidents continue to pile up before the court system without resolution.
Accidents still pending review by the District Attorney’s Office include a Dec. 17 car-pedestrian accident at West 12th Street and Weschler Avenue in Erie that killed 57-year-old Donald L. Laird; a Dec. 24 car-pedestrian accident on East 38th Street that killed 32-year-old Sarah Nortum; and a Jan. 6 two-car accident at East 14th and French streets in Erie that killed 24-year-old Letoinne Barnett.
Erie police filed charges against a driver in the Jan. 6 accident later that day. but the District Attorney’s Office withdrew the charges a short time later because the office had not reviewed the charges or the police investigation.
Another unresolved death investigation is that of 39-year-old Ryan Lindsey, who died Dec. 21 after police and witnesses said he had fought with his brother and was cut at an apartment in the 300 block of West Ninth Street.
The Erie County Coroner’s Office has not released the cause and manner of Lindsey’s death, although Coroner Lyell Cook said the death was not caused by the cut to Lindsey’s neck.
Daneri said last week that a resolution in the case awaits the completion of Lindsey’s autopsy report.
TIM HAHN can be reached at 870-1731 or by e-mail.
