A street racer who allegedly caused a deadly accident which killed at least three people including a truck driver has been charged with three counts of second-degree murder.
Dealio Lockhart, the street racer, was driving a Dodge Challenger on I-5 in Commerce, CA, apparently racing another unknown driver in a Dodge Charger, when he lost control of his vehicle. The Challenger hit into the left side of a UPS tractor trailer, causing the whole thing to hit the center median, go airborne, and crash down into oncoming traffic.
Once over the median, the truck sheared off the top of a Nissan Sentra and came to rest on a Ford Explorer before bursting into flames. Two of the four passengers in the Sentra and the driver of the truck died in the crash, with the other two passengers in critical condition. Other cars were also involved in the crash, injuring two additional motorists.
The victims were 52-year-old UPS driver Scott Treadway, 18-year-old Brian Lewandowski, and his friend 19-year-old Michelle Littlefield. According to the parents of the teens, the friends were on their way home from Disneyland when the crash occurred.
For allegedly causing the accident, Lockhart has been charged with three counts of second-degree murder and four counts of reckless driving on a highway causing specific injury.
The other racer has not yet been found, but authorities are offering a $10,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest of the driver of the Dodge Charger.
Source: cbs, ktla, ktla, whittierdailynews, abc
Horrible for the parents. Life can end in a blink.
It’s too bad California doesn’t support the death penalty. This idiot certainly is a candidate for it. R.I.P. Driver and the other two young people.
Calm down. People don’t get the death penalty for second degree murder. That is reserved for people charged with premeditated murder and usually with special circumstances. This guy is an idiot who deserves to rot in jail for a good long time, but not the needle.
He would get it if they had it. The boy who died was the son of a homicide detective. Before that was known, he was only charged with vehicular manslaughte.
Although this is the correct charge, it seems they only stepped it up when they found out who the victim was.
Mark I disagree. If you fire a gun into a crowd and someone dies, LI is the appropriate punishment. What this and the other driver did is no less criminal. If they were racing on a stretch of road that was mostly empty then I would see your argument. But they were on I5 just outside LA where describing it congested doesn’t give it the depth of the traffic crowding. Because they voluntarily made a conscious decision to race on a crowded highway knowing the dangers and that someone could die I would consider it premeditated with special circumstances in the 3 deaths. Again it’s because of the location in addition to the actions racing on a crowded freeway(which is dangerous & why NASCAR is on a track with rules). Just as firing at a deer in the woods and hitting another hunter doesn’t reach to the level of firing into a crowd.
Sorry Gordon, but the charge of premeditated homicide requires that you act with the intent to murder, not that you acted recklessly and without regard to other’s safety, and death resulted. If they could prove that the driver went out there with the intent to kill, then yes…first degree it is. That is not the case. He was wantonly reckless, causing deaths, and is charged appropriately.
Also Gordon…the accident happened around midnight. The highway is not at the “depth of traffic crowding” you try describe at that time of day.
It’s Los Angeles. There’s always heavy traffic. It’s not ‘as’ heavy at midnight but it’s still heavy.
I disagree Gordon, firing a gun into a crowd has a very clear intent to seriously injure or kill someone. This is more like firing a gun in the woods, knowing that there are houses and people around, but assuming that you wont hit anyone.
1st degree murder is intent to kill + premeditation and deliberation. This is not the case.
2nd degree murder includes, intentional killing; by extremely reckless conduct, intent to cause serious bodily harm.
This is the case, so he was properly charged.
Boys will be boys doing stupid dangerous things. They did not race expecting to wreck or even cause an accident that would end in death. Why are we discussing corporal punishment here? There isn’t any evil here.
You mean capital punishment. Corporal punishment is a good ass-whooping.
Does it say the time of day or night? I’ve been on I-5 with little traffic.
Midnight…very little traffic at that time of night, at least compared to rush hour.
Around midnight
No he deserves death and until people see why it will continue to be. Why should he be allowed to live his life in prison and be kept be the tax payers. He murdered innocent people and you think it’s ok for him to live. It the same as if he took a gun or knife and murdered them all. Death to the idiot.
no he needs to be run over by 1000 big rigs
A good prosecutor can make the case for premeditaded murder,from the moment he decided to engage in this activity it became premeditated, knowing full well that a car can be a deadly weapon,when he pressed the accelerator was the same as pointing a loaded gun at random passersby and pressing the trigger…This is a misscarriage of justice and a case in which I wholeheartedly advocate vigilantism.
Its sad what happened but lets get real most of us have done some stupid stuff when we were young drag racing most people on this form has done it or we have done something stupid that put other people lives in danger
Yeah let the tax payers take care of him for the rest of his life, three square meals a day and a bed and a pillow to lay his head.Make sense to me
Put him against a wall n shoot him !
That other driver should be on somebody dash cam, I bet it is out there somewhere, they need to find him to. UPS usually their trucks are LNG which yeah they may save money over pure runs of diesel, but we all know the flash-point of it is much lower than diesel. Like the driver said here, life can end in a blink.
The truck Scott Treadway was driving was a desiel. The building that Scott drives out of has no LNG trucks.
This is a serious problem with safety on our roadways.Accidents and highway fatalities are getting out of control.this is partly due to our so called traffic police are not out there doing there job at 100%.I have family in law enforcement and they will agree with this.the other major problem is your 911 calls rarely get dispatched.One issues an average of 14 traffic citations per day.You can travel for several 100 miles and not see traffic enforcement.Sure there are times you will see a patrol unit sitting in the median or ramp,but they are generating taking naps or on the internet not paying any attention to their job.I have seen patrol units napping in the median many times.Until you tax payers stand up and be heard and hold the law enforcement and 911 dispatchers accountable for not performing at 100%+these rates will continue to get higher.
I’ve only driven for 5 years and in that 5 years, the roadways have systematically gone to Hell…
You won’t see this on CNN. The truck driver wasn’t at fault. But then again they may just leave out that fact!
Cried when I read this. Prayers for the families. I have teenagers myself and I cant begin to imagine losing them. And they were coming back from Disney, these drivers killed Children, just so they can play race car drivers? They really need stricter laws on racing and reckless driving that ALWAYS gets you jail time, nationwide. I dont know how it is in California, but in Tennessee, we have a lot of racetracks you can rent for a day or a weekend to ‘race’ your cars. Our road ways are NOT playgrounds. I dont think the guys deserves the death penalty, bcuz Im sure they didnt mean to hurt anyone. They were playing. Spending every day in jail, knowing you killed someones daddy, and someone elses children, must be hard. They are faced with living with that, and all they can do now is sit and remember it. Maybe thats a worse punishment than death. Death is such an easy way out. If it was my dad, my child, I would want these guys to live, so they can live with what they did, every day of their lives. Maybe they should be asking they guy they caught about the one they didnt. Car color, any racing stripes or special decals/stickers? You know at one point they were side by side, so he must have seen the other driver. What color hair? What race? Just with car color and knowing make and model they can look at any camera on any roadways the guy took around the area at time of accident. There are camera’s EVERYWHERE. As truck drivers, you guys all know this. Hes on a camera. Which one is the question. Thoughts and Prayers for the families. RIP. God Bless.
You are assuming the murder has a concience,that s not always the case,there are people that can kill and not have a second thought about it,today’s society has created lots of teenagers,heartless monsters,I advocate the death penalty to whoever murders another,regardless of the murderer’s age,except obviously in accidents,this here is no accident,the murderer made his choice the moment he stepped on the gas in a crowded highway…in a perfect hell he would be run over time after time for all eternity.
UPS over the road tractors are usually diesel.
You are starting to see a number of LNG units on the UPS otr fleet.
Yes cng is becoming more popular JB Hunt uses also PTI uses it..
What s an OTR UPS tractor? I thought ALL tractors went 200-300 mls and turn around back to trmnl,I ve seen LNG UPS out in the middle of nowhere,I didn t think they still had them restricted to city driving.
This makes my blood boil. I am a drag racer and I love fast cars. There are plenty of tracks around to do it legally. Morons like this gives drag racers a bad reputation and the vast majority of us despise street racing in any form.
I agree with the 2nd degree murder charges, he did not intend to kill. I just hope he gets maximum punishment for it, there’s a very thin line here between not intending to kill and knowing possibility of it from his decisions. IMO his is at the top end of 2nd degree murder.
I agree, as a former drag racer back in 1979-1981, I never took advantage of any street with traffic for that purpose. Selfish punk kids shouldn’t be allowed to have muscle cars. I drive a truck and twice had out of control cars run into me. In 2011 a girl was out of control on a highway, and I smacked her hard loaded at 80,000 lbs. Last August a guy hit me nearly head on on a two-lane road. The brand new Peterbilt I was driving lost brakes so I had to slam into the hill opposite side of road. Truck caught on fire and was destroyed. I have permanent tendon injuries still not fixed, and I haven’t received a dime from Farmers (punk’s insurance) I lost $1200 of stuff in the truck. Now I’m working with a personal injury lawyer. Driving used to be pleasant but now we have 37 million in California and a large percentage of turds on the roads. I pray driving tests get harder and harder until they have to walk or take the bus. Also I’m 59 so hope I can retire or get out of this cesspool called Sonoma County before it’s completely degraded with too many people.
Joe,
And here I was going to give the reporter an atta boy for calling it street racing instead of drag racing like most of them do.
I feel so bad about all what happened in this accident, but there is a lot of work to be done by the government about all these car racing on the freeway
The 911 systems takes to much time to respond reports from drivers when trying to stop this crazy drivers or others incidents on the road
GOD BLESS ALL .
About 2 years ago a fed ex truck crashed into a bus on I-5 and the world heard about it . U P S crashes , not the same situation but it was multi vehicle and a big ball of fire , and as far as I know no one has heard anything about this. I wonder how big a settlement they will pay ? The U P S truck was not the cause but those gut sucking lawyers will try to get something out of it.
And the cops ticket drivers for 2 mph over. Where were the cops when these 2 stunt drivers put hundreds of people in danger. Life can end so quickly. The teens life’s were cut so short. Prayers for those injured. Did it say if the idiot was injured?
Most Natural Gas Vehicle explosion will NOT make national news. They happen frequently, but usually only make local news. It will be, very, bad marketing, if the world knew the facts about Compress Gas Vehicles.
It was a desiel fuel powered truck.
Punk kids should not be allowed to have muscle cars. They cannot handle the responsibility. Drag racing belongs on the drag strip, not on streets and highways, morons.
I drive this same freeway everynight same time night shift , I’m also a truck driver local. So sad it could’ve been me , prayers go out to the 30 year UPS veteran drivers family and also the young teens.
Praying for the 2 in critical condition and the families of the 4 victims. This is such a tragedy, and after reading some of the posts, well I’ll leave that alone.
The racer was charged with a higher crime in order to set his bond higher and give room for negotiation. I’m for the death penalty in many crimes however, this is not a death penalty crime.
Any attorney will have these charges reduced to vehicular homicide for the deaths and reckless driving for all of the victims. Sad part is that CA has a maximum 90 day sentence for Reckless Driving which can be sentenced consecutively so the total amount of jail time will be 21 months then the reckless will be sentenced consecutively with the Gross Vehicular Homicide and the maximum sentence is 6 yrs. If it is consecutive then he will serve every day for the Reckless Driving and a percentage for GVH. The man will be behind bars for about 4yrs and the families will still be grieving for their loved ones!!! It is unfortunate that our Justice system is caught between a rock and a loop hole!
I am praying the families can get through the trama they are about to endure.
I would vote for death penalty as well.