Winter, meanwhile, was recovering from serious injuries. "She purposely went into that wrong way in a traffic, ran into that car … and had to know, or should have known that by doing so, she was going to kill the occupants in that other vehicle," Corrigan said. "She did just exactly what she said she was going to do," Freebury said.įor veteran Flathead County attorney Ed Corrigan, the findings of the police investigation were enough to indict Winter as an adult on two counts of deliberate homicide, the highest charge available. That night, after Freebury questioned Winter's boyfriend, Ryan Langford, and learned of Winter's text messages threatening to crash her car, authorities believed they found that reason. "We didn't know why this happened," he said. Based on the evidence at the scene, Freebury along with troopers from the Montana Highway Patrol concluded that Winter's car crossed into the northbound lane of the highway and hit Thompson's Subaru. Ernie Freebury began the accident investigation. I said, 'We're flying, honey.'"īack in Montana, Patrol Sgt. "They worked on her the whole way there and pumped more blood in her. "I don't know how much blood they pumped into her," Mary Winter said. Rescuers pulled her from the wreckage and she was airlifted to a Seattle hospital, with her shaken mother, Mary Winter, by her side. "I didn't think she was going to make it."īut while hope was lost for Thompson and Caden, Justine Winter was still alive. I just pulled that out and … then the white foam and the blood came out pretty profusely," he remembered. "Her tongue had gone back into her esophagus. Inside, he found Winter, looking like she was close to death.
Poeppel rushed to the wreckage of the car closest to him - Winter's Pontiac. As they reached the bridge, he watched in horror as Erin Thompson slowed in front of him and then Thompson's and Winter's cars collided head-on. Local resident Richard Poeppel happened to be driving behind them.
Prosecutors say Winter made no effort to brake as she entered the construction zone.Īt the same time, Thompson and Caden were headed in the other way down the highway in Thompson's Subaru Forester. Road construction constricted the bridge from four lanes to two. Police say her speedometer climbed to 85 miles per hour as she approached the Stillwater Bridge. PHOTOS: Erin Thompson, Caden and Justine WinterĪs Winter drove down the highway, the emotional texts continued for nearly a half hour. The boyfriend, 17-year-old Ryan Langford, was jealous over something he'd read in her journal about an old boyfriend. 93 was fraught with tension - Winter had just left her boyfriend's house after an argument. Friends said Winter was excited to be able to drive, but that particular trip down U.S. A popular, straight-A student, Winter, then 16, was driving the green Pontiac Grand Am she had gotten as a birthday gift from her father. "I didn't want anything more than just to raise family together and to know that I was going to be with her for the rest of my life," Jason Thompson said.Īs Erin Thompson drove north that night, Justine Winter headed down the southbound side of Highway 93. The expectant father was her husband of almost three years, Jason Thompson. But Thompson was also glowing for another reason - she was four months pregnant with her second child.
She was glowing with pride for her teenage son, a talented drummer who was one of three students chosen to play at the concert. after watching him perform in a school concert. Thompson was driving her son Caden home just after 8 p.m. 93 in the Flathead Valley of northwest Montana in March, 2009. Justine Winter, 18, says she's not responsible for the deaths of Erin Thompson, 35, and her son Caden Odell, but Thompson's family and prosecutors disagree, arguing that text messages Winter sent before the collision prove that she purposely caused the crash in an attempt to commit suicide. 18, 2011 — - A Montana teenager blamed for a car crash that led to the deaths of a pregnant woman and her 13-year-old son is facing the better part of the next decade in prison.
0 kommentar(er)
