Drunk driver loses control, passenger killed

Legal scholars will tell you that in order to be convicted of murder it must be shown that the perpetrator had the intent to kill. While in our next story that criminal purpose may have been lacking, the outcome was no less final.

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Nineteen year old Rasheeda Young usually took a taxi home after work but around one thirty on Saturday morning Young left the Riverside Tavern in the company of her co-worker Melanie Pollard and Pollard?s friend Trevor Matthews after they offered Young a lift.

Annica Hill, Friend/Co?Worker
?My boyfriend use to pick us up or we use to take the cab.
We know life isn?t perfect and we would not have the money for the cab or the cab might not even be around. He runs on other errands. I mean you are coming off work two three the morning and you want to get home because you are sleepy and hungry. It doesn?t matter how you get home because you just want to get home.?

Young never made it home alive.

George Young, Father of the Deceased
?I think she fly out of the vehicle, then she knocked into the cement wall and then dropped on the pavement again.?

Police investigations reveal that the white Prado was travelling in a southerly direction on Magazine Road heading towards Dolphin Street but as the vehicle reached the intersection, it ran the stop sign and collided into a Toyota Camry that was travelling on Cemetery Road and driven at the time by twenty nine year old Jermaine Ottley. The Prado reportedly spun out of control and crashed into the cement wall of the Rogers Stadium. Young, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown forward from the rear passenger seat and through the vehicle?s windshield.

George Young
?We gone to the hospital but the doctor say that her neck was broken and her brains were knocked out of her head. He said that they couldn?t do anything for her.?

George Young is not only struggling with his eldest daughter?s death, but also with disturbing reports from witnesses that Matthews was speeding and that screams were heard coming from the vehicle just before it crashed.

George Young
?He never did stop at the intersection, none at all. I guess he just fly through it, I think about sixty, seventy, eighty miles an hour, according to the people that were out there. She had to be in the back. I guess she was between the two seats the try scramble and the try stop him from driving fast and something. Because according to people around there they said that the two ladies were bawling and hollering for him to stop or slow down or something like that. That was what the person out at the scene said. By the time he got on his verandah and down his step he saw somebody fly through the window before he came down the step. It was when he got on the street is when he realized that it was a young lady.?

Annica Hill
?If he was driving slow they wouldn?t have gotten any of those injuries any at all. Regardless what they bumped into that would have flipped it over and that would have been it.?

News Five has since confirmed that the Prado is the property of the U.S Embassy where Matthew is employed. Embassy officials as usual declined comment on the grounds of confidentiality, but reports to News Five indicate that Matthews was on suspension for unspecified infractions.

George Young
?According to what I got to understand that a white guy told me that seemed to know a little about the embassy and stuff that the guy had already gotten suspension from the vehicle. He shouldn?t have been driving the vehicle none at all and the vehicle shouldn?t be out after five. The vehicle was out like two three the morning so definitely something gone wrong someway bout.?

Annica Hill
?And the thing is that he works at the embassy and when my boyfriend spoke to the guy from the embassy he told him that that guy should have not had that vehicle that night. What he does–he is a driver for the embassy and he gets the vehicle and he go jolly ride with them. He always just show off and go joy ride with people. I do not know if he was on suspension when the accident happen but what I heard was that he was on suspension because he took another vehicle already without the permission of the embassy. So that is what I heard and also people said that he was drinking already at the Iguana nightclub. We know that he was drunk and that is one thing I am sure of.?

At this time Young says he does not care to speak with Matthews whom he believes is responsible for his daughter?s death.

George Young
?Well I no want to meet the driver. I tell you the truth I don?t want to meet the driver because I don?t want to be responsible for what I would do. The parents said that they wanted to talk to me because they called earlier and I told them that they could come by and let us talk. But that?s the only thing we can do because they cannot bring back my daughter.?

Nineteen year old Rasheeda Young is scheduled to be laid to rest on Tuesday.

Trevor Matthews, who received injuries to his ribs and legs, was admitted to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. Police say both Melanie Pollard and Jermaine Ottley were treated and released. Authorities say as soon as Matthews is out of the hospital he will be charged. Reports to News Five indicate that Matthews was thoroughly beaten by police who were infuriated with hits disregard for the lives of his passengers.