THP Mistakenly Reported Mom Being Drunk Before Crash That Killed Her And 3 Children
On Sunday, a woman and three young children were killed in a horrific car accident when they collided head-on with a tractor trailer as she drove on the wrong side of the highway.
A Tennessee Highway Patrol officer marked that she was drinking and driving but new reports state that this may have been an assumption and whether she was drinking is still unknown.
Latricia Taylor, 34, was driving north on the southbound side of the 1-269 interstate in Fayette County, Tennessee, when her Buick collided with the truck carrying frozen meat.
Taylor along with her son Kaylan Taylor, 9; nephew Dylan Stokes, 7; and niece Kaylie Stokes, 3, were killed in the devastating crash at around 1 AM on Sunday.
No one was wearing a seatbelt and Taylor was just five minutes away from home when the collision took place.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol originally said that the mom was driving under the influence but now that may not be the case.
Two days later, a new report from the THP states it’s unknown if Latricia Taylor was consuming alcohol before the crash.
According to a THP spokesman, a dispatcher checked a box saying Taylor had been consuming alcohol on a report that was filed Sunday afternoon.
NBC 10 News reports:
“The investigative trooper found evidence of alcohol possession at scene,” Sgt. Chris Richardson wrote in an email. “Given the location of the crash, there was an assumption made. That assumption was mistakenly given to dispatch who then placed it on the report.”
Two days later, a new report was filed that changed the answer to the question if Taylor had been drinking from “yes” to “unknown.”
Investigators say Taylor was driving Southbound on the Northbound side of I-269 near Highway 57 early Sunday morning. Taylor hit a tractor-trailer head-on. She and three children were killed.
Sgt. Richardson said THP will wait until the blood test results come back from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to determine if Taylor was under the influence.
However, the TBI said it has not yet received Taylor’s blood sample. A TBI spokeswoman also said that the average turnaround time on blood alcohol tests is nearly four months, though a rush can be requested by a district attorney. So far, the TBI said it has not received a rush request from the DA in Shelby County or Fayette County.
THP also changed the location of the crash from Fayette County to Shelby County on the report. It is unclear why the location changed.
Both reports show neither Taylor nor the three children were wearing seatbelts.
Taylor was a mother-of-three and her family say the accident is out of her character.
‘Nikki was a wonderful mother. She’s not a drinker. Everybody kind of social drinks but she’s not a drinker,’ Taylor’s sister-in-law Toni More said to WREG.
She says Taylor was a hardworking mother and was tired Saturday evening and made a mistake.
The crash remains under investigation.
