Crime Time

Accounts differ on scene of wreck that killed Dallas Cowboy

As the Dallas Cowboys paid tribute to Jerry Brown (shown here) at a private memorial on Tuesday, differing accounts surfaced about the scene of the fatal wreck early Saturday in Irving.

A woman who arrived moments after the wreck said Brown's teammate Josh Brent didn't try to save his friend's life until she begged him.

"Jerry was alive," Stacee McWilliams of Irving told The Dallas Morning News. "He was hurt. He was calling out, and his own friend walked away."

Brent's attorney, George Milner, told The Associated Press that an investigating officer told him the woman's story didn't match the circumstances surrounding Brown's death. Milner said he was told that Brown "wasn't talking to anyone. He wasn't moaning. He was dead."

Read more about the investigation and Tuesday's memorial service in this account by the AP's Schuyler Dixon.

Woman desperately cries for help in 911 call from submerged car in southeast Fort Worth

A woman and a 22-month-old girl died Thursday evening after their car crashed through an iron fence and ended up in a large pond, where it sank as the driver talked to a 911 operator and bystanders frantically tried to free her.

"We're in the water and I've got a 22-month-old baby and I need some help. ... My doors won't open," the driver told a Forest Hill 911 dispatcher.

"Ma'am, my doors won't open and I've got a baby, and we're going underwater," the driver said before repeatedly screaming at the would-be rescuers to try to break the glass.

The dispatcher calmly tried to get help to the woman even as her situation grew more desperate.

But the car slowly sank in the pond off of Southeast Loop 820. The mother and her baby daughter were pronounced dead at area hospitals.

Follow this link to read how Forest Hill police and police and firefighters from Fort Worth braved icy water, hoping to rescue the woman and her baby.

 

 

 

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/11/15/4417949/woman-toddler-pulled-from-submerged.html#storylink=cpy

DPS: Riding partners killed when motorcycles collide in Denton County

Two men described as motorcycle riding partners were fatally injured early Wednesday when their motorcycles collided head-on in rural Denton County, officials reported.

Blaiz Beale, 23, of Little Elm was pronounced dead at the scene in the 4600 block of Schluter Road, northwest of Ponder, said Trooper Lonny Haschel of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Juan Hernandez, 27, of Ponder was taken to Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth where he died at 2:05 p.m., according to the Tarrant County medical examiner's office.

The trooper said they were "riding partners" and had been out riding all night.

A third man was riding with them, but had gotten a quarter-mile ahead and became concerned when he could no longer see lights from their motorcycles, Haschel said.

Read more here.

-- Bill Miller

 

Driver, 19, dies after wreck south of downtown

A 19-year-old man was fatally injured early Friday when the car he drove hit a traffic control signal box just south of downtown, police reported.

Andrew Grimes of Fort Worth died at 1:17 p.m. Friday at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner's office.

The wreck happened about 12 hours earlier at the intersection of Hemphill Street and West Vickery, near the Dickies Factory Outlet.

Read more here.

-- Bill Miller

Mesquite teen is 5th victim of horse-drawn carriage crash

Mesquite teen-ager Colby Finch loved racing at the dirt track in Ennis and planned to go to college in North Texas this fall. Saturday, friends and fans were remembering the teen, the fifth member of his family to die after a semi-truck hit their horse-drawn wagon in Oklahoma. His uncle, a high school principal, was driving the wagon on a highway when it was hit from behind, the Tulsa World reported. He, his 5-year-old daughter, his brother, the and the brothers' 4-year-old niece died at the scene Thursday. Finch died Friday at a Tulsa hospital where he was flown after the crash. 

Driver arrested after 2 killed in Dallas crash

Dallas police arrested the driver of a pickup truck early Monday after two people were killed when the truck slammed into a bus stop, killing two people who at the stop at Harry Hines Boulevard and Inwood Road.

The driver is suspected of driving while intoxicated, according to television reports.

Video showed the truck heavily damaged and the bus stop destroyed.

-- Lance Murray

The undead: 'Victim' of fatal crash found asleep in his bed

Alfred and Geri Espito of Mastic Beach, N.Y., must have had a true emotional roller coaster ride Saturday when police told them that their 26-year-old son "Freddy" was killed in an auto accident.

A police officer had found Freddy's driver's license clutched in the hand of one of the crash victims.

Ninety minutes later the couple found out that Freddy was alive, well and asleep at the home he shared with his brother. The brother, thought he was seeing a ghost, when he found Freddy.

Police aren't sure how 18-year-old Paul Richards, the real victim of the crash, had come to possess a copy of Freddy's license, but said they had once been frat brothers, the Associated Press reported.

-- Lance Murray

Dallas police seek mid-'80s Ford Bronco in fatal hit-and-run

Dallas police are looking for a hit-and-run vehicle that killed a 42-year-old woman at 9:45 p.m. Oct. 17, in the 1900 block of Fort Worth Avenue in Dallas.

Police have not been able to locate the victim's next of kin, according to a release from Senior Cpl. Kevin Janse, a Dallas police spokesman.

According to witnesses, the woman was struck by a mid-1980s two-tone Ford Bronco that was beige and possible dark green. Janse said the vehicle likely has damage to the front end, its hood and a broken headlight.

Anyone with information can contact the Vehicle Crimes Unit at 214-670-5817.

-- Lance Murray

Texting driver to be tried for hitting, killing pedestrian

A motorist in California has been ordered to stand trial on charges that he struck and killed a pedestrian after texting on his cellphone in the car.

His lawyer says there's no proof the man was texting when the pedestrian was struck, but prosecutors contend that his use of the phone and other factors constituted negligence when he didn't see the pedestrian, the Los Angeles Times reports.

-- Lance Murray

Mom charged: 14-year-old daughter was driving in fatal crash

Police in South Carolina say that a woman has been charged with seven counts of unlawful conduct toward a child after she let her 14-year-old daughter drive her car packed with other children.

The daughter crashed the car as the mother rode in the passenger seat, police said, resulting in the death of a 1-year-old girl riding on someone's lap.  Police said nobody in the car was wearing a seat belt.

-- Lance Murray