Kosciusko Co. driver charged for 142 mph fatal crash
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — A warrant has been issued against a Winona Lake woman related to a fatal crash along U.S. 30 near Goshen Road in September 2016.
Stacey R. Motz-Altman, 38, has been charged with felony reckless homicide and criminal recklessness committed with a deadly weapon related to the Sept. 8 crash along the eastbound lanes of U.S. 30 near the Goshen Road interchange that killed 54-year-old Luann Simon.
Police and medics were called after 11 p.m. that September night to the eastbound lanes of U.S. 30 on a report of a crash. There, police found a black 2015 Infiniti Q50 sedan and 2012 Chevrolet Impala badly wrecked.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Motz-Altman had been speeding her Infiniti 142 mph when she rear-ended Simon’s Impala. The posted speed limit was 50 mph, the affidavit said.
The impact shoved the Impala into the rear of a semi tractor-trailer, and investigators said it may have been dragged underneath the semi’s trailer for several hundred feet before coming to a stop. Simon was left pinned inside her vehicle. She was pulled from the wreckage by Fort Wayne firefighters and taken to a hospital in critical condition where she later died.
Motz-Altman had no drugs or alcohol in her system at the time of the crash, the affidavit said. She told an officer she’d been ill with food poisoning and was driving to Fort Wayne to get something to eat, the affidavit said.
Motz-Altman said the Impala had slowed down in front of her vehicle, which caused the crash, according to the affidavit.