The woman behind the wheel of a car hit by a drunk driver may face charges related to the death of a 6-year-old boy riding in her car.
Lynn Ann Worley, 42, allegedly failed to buckle in six-year-old Devin Lehman-O’neal, who died after being ejected from the back seat as a result of the collision. Worley was O’neal’s babysitter.
None of the car’s occupants were wearing seat belts.
Sergeant Mike Harper, of the Town of Madison Police Department, said interim police chief Scott Gregory is consulting with the district attorney’s office to explore the possibility of charging Worley with failing to buckle up the child.
“He wanted the DA’s office to review it, to see if there are going to be any charges,” Harper said. “I can’t answer for lawyers. It’s in their hands.”
Eric Stearn, 50, was driving west-bound on the 3500 block of the Beltline’s frontage road when he ran a stop sign and careened into the car driven by a Worley and occupied by the three children she was babysitting.
The Town of Madison Police arrested Stearn, a lawyer who has been convicted of DUI in the past, and charged him with homicide by operating a vehicle while intoxicated, his fifth drunken-driving charge.
According to Kate Nolan, spokesperson for the Dane chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the accident is part of a statewide trend marked by an increasing number of drunken-driving fatalities, enhanced by lenient enforcement of seat-belt laws.
Nolan said the incident should serve as a fresh example for why the state should crack down on apathetic seat-belt use.
“We have one of the lowest rates of seat-belt use in Wisconsin, and it’s killing people,” said Nolan, who called on the State Legislature to pass a primary seat-belt law. “Wisconsin is having a deadly year. Traffic fatalities have been skyrocketing.”
Alcohol and lackadaisical seat-belt use combined in a deadly accident for a deadly accident in August.
A car containing intoxicated teenagers was traveling at 80 mph when the driver failed to stop for a red light, and the car was struck by a tractor-trailer crossing the intersection at Mineral Point Road and South Gammon Road. The top of the vehicle was sheared off as it went underneath the truck.
The driver, Tyler Pagel, 18, who was due to graduate high school several days after the accident took place, had a blood-alcohol level of about .24, almost three times the legal level of intoxication in Wisconsin.
None of the car’s occupants were wearing seat belts.
