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- [S113] Manes Funeral Home, (http://www.manesfuneralhome.com), 30 May 2013.
Patricia "Pat" Carter obituary
- [S142] Newspaper Article, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, 2 Nov 2010.
Easter crash trial
Aimee Michael guilty of all counts against her in crash that killed 5
Aimee Michael is charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, one count of serious injury by vehicle and six counts of hit and run.
By Ty Tagami
UPDATE: Aimee Michael has been found guilty of all counts against her -- five felony counts of homicide by vehicle in the first degree and one felony count of serious injury by vehicle. Each of those counts is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Michael also is convicted of two misdemeanor traffic charges – reckless driving and failure to maintain a lane, which could each bring another year behind bars.
Michael was taken into custody immediately. Sentencing is set for 9 a.m. Thursday.
The jury in the trial of Aimee Michael convicted her Monday on all counts against her in their fourth day of deliberations.
Michael, 24, was convicted of causing the Easter 2009 crash on Camp Creek Parkway that resulted in the deaths of five people and of then fleeing the scene and covering up her role.
Michael was a recent college graduate who was on an ice cream run to a Publix in her parents’ BMW 740 iL when she collided with a silver Mercedes driven by Robert Carter in the lane to her left.
Both cars spun into oncoming traffic in the westbound lanes, and the Mercedes struck a Volkswagen Beetle head-on.
Carter was Killed instantly, as was his wife seated beside him, Delisia. Their 2-month-old son, Ethan Carter, and Delisia Carter’s daughter Kayla Lemons, 9. were both seated in the back and died when they breathed superheated air after the car caught fire.
In the Volkswagen, Morgan Johnson, 6, was killed by the impact. Her mother, Tracie, now 44, survived but suffered broken legs, a broken hip and collarbone and damage to her spleen and liver.
For the next 10 days, police would search frantically for the car they knew had crashed with the Mercedes. They used pieces of a BMW that were ripped away by the impact to hunt Michael down. Suspicious neighbors tipped off police, and, on April 22, 2009, an officer found the car, smelling of fresh paint, in the Michael family’s driveway in south Fulton County.
Hours later, Michael admitted in an interview with Fulton County investigators that she was in the crash and that she had gotten the car repaired afterward.
Michael rejected a plea deal from the office of Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard that would have gotten her 50 years in prison. Michael could conceivably be incarcerated for more than twice that amount of time. Her mother, Sheila, pleaded guilty last week to tampering with evidence and hindering the apprehension of a criminal, and is to be sentenced after her daughter's trial.
Her lawyer, W. Scott Smith, told jurors at the trial’s start on Oct. 20 that Michael was guilty of tampering with evidence, a misdemeanor worth a year behind bars, and of the six felony counts of hit and run, which could each bring one to five years in prison. And in his closing argument Wednesday, he urged jurors to convict on those charges.
But Smith contended his client did not cause the crash with the Mercedes, and asked the jury to acquit her on five felony counts of homicide by vehicle in the first degree and one felony count of serious injury by vehicle. Each of those counts is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Smith said Michael also is innocent of two misdemeanor traffic charges – reckless driving and failure to maintain a lane, which could each bring another year behind bars.
Tanya Miller, the lead prosecutor, said Michael was guilty on all counts. She urged jurors not to jump down the “rabbit hole” of crash scene evidence and expert testimony to determine whether Michael caused the chain-reaction crash.
Miller said the case was simple: Michael’s decision to flee the scene was circumstantial evidence that she knew she had caused the crash and killed all those people.
The jury of nine men and three women began deliberating at 4 p.m. Wednesday and worked all day Thursday and Friday without reaching a consensus.
Friday afternoon, jurors asked to review a 911 audio recording and a video recording of a police interview with the only eyewitness of the crash -- Ramona Barrett, a Spelman College student who was driving ahead of the BMW and the Mercedes.
They nodded and scribbled in their notebooks while reviewing the recordings, but failed to reach a verdict.
Superior Court Judge Kimberly M. Esmond Adams, who had said she at the trial’s start that she expected it to end by last Friday, then sent them home for the weekend and told them to return to resume their work at 9 a.m. Monday.
- [S147] Find a Grave, (Memorial: 36087934).
- [S58] Marriage Certificate.
Name Partricia A Stewart
Event Type Marriage
Event Date 14 Feb 1976
Event Place Cocke, Tennessee, United States
Gender Female
Spouse's Name James Dan Carter
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1970 - 2009 (39 years)
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