The car that struck and killed a woman in another car Sunday may have been carrying two drunken drivers.
Vanessa Lawrence and her family were returning home from church about 5 p.m. when it happened.
“As I pulled in my carport, I heard a loud bang almost just like a bomb going off,” Lawrence said.
A Volvo with a drunken driver behind the wheel was racing down Brock Road when it crossed the center line and hit the car driven by 25-year-old Samantha Sumter, investigators said. Rescuers cut her out of the car, but she died soon after.
Lawrence and her daughter told the men in the Volvo help was coming.
“I came out and saw the guy’s leg just hanging out, and we just started praying,” Lawrence’s daughter said.
Calls about the Volvo were placed before the fatal crash, according to the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office. People called 911 to report a car driving dangerously fast. The passengers were hanging cartons or beer out the window and yelling, witnesses said.
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The Volvo struck two vehicles, at which point one man bailed out and ran and the two others changed seats.
“The subjects then, it appears, switched places where the driver left the driver's seat, according to the witnesses, another person in the vehicle took over driver's seat,” Capt. Jeff Pearce of the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office said.
Sheriff’s deputies were trying to catch up, but the Volvo continued further down the road until the head-on collision.
“This is one of the worst things that a deputy has to deal with is the death of an innocent, and you never get used to it,” Pearce said.
One man in the Volvo has already been charged with driving under the influence, but other charges against both men are likely.
