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Woman Upset Over Divorce Allegedly Drove Wrong Way Down Highway On Purpose, Killing Another Family
Timmy and Karen Thompson, along with their 10-year-old daughter Tessa, were killed when the car Abby Michaels was driving the wrong way down I-75 plowed into them head on.
A woman distraught over her husband filing for divorce allegedly drove the wrong way on an Ohio interstate intentionally, crashing into and killing an entire family.
Newly obtained police records give insight into the St. Patrick’s Day tragedy that took the lives of Timmy Thompson, his wife, Karen Thompson, and their 10-year-old daughter, Tessa Thompson.
Their Toyota Camry collided with a Kia driven by Abby Michaels, 21, of Xenia, who was allegedly deliberately driving the wrong way on I-75, toward oncoming traffic, according to the Dayton Daily News.
She survived the crash and was arrested Thursday at a psychiatric hospital, WLWT 5 in Cincinnati reports. She has been charged with six counts of murder, six counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. Her bond was set Tuesday at $3 million as she was arraigned via teleconference. Her defense attorney Jay Adams entered not guilty pleas for her.
Police records, newly obtained by WLWT, reveal that her husband filed for divorce two days before the deadly crash.
On the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, just hours before the collision, Michaels allegedly called her husband who told investigators he could tell "she had been drinking,” according to those records. She wanted to come over, according to his account and he rejected her. This prompted her to allegedly declare, "I'm gonna kill myself."
A few minutes later, he said she called back and said, "I'm going (to) drive backwards on 75,” according to the police records.
At the time of the crash, Michaels was “wearing a festive St. Patrick’s Day shirt,” according to the police report cited by People. She also allegedly had beer foaming out of her mouth.
Initially, the incident was being eyed as a possible vehicular manslaughter case before it was upgraded to a murder case.
“This was not an accident,” Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck said at a press conference on Thursday. “This defendant was upset and decided to take the action that she did. Evidence shows this defendant knew what she was doing and what she wanted to accomplish.”
He added that witnesses said Michaels "was actually accelerating when she struck the victims’ vehicle head-on.” He called the woman's actions “deliberate and outrageous.”
After Tuesday’s arraignment, Michaels’ lawyer reporters that the incident has been difficult for his client’s family, adding that “of course anytime you've got a child in custody it's got to be very hard on anybody," the Dayton Daily News reports.
