DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 1:40 p.m. June 09, 2009
Lawrenceville woman killed as she tried to slow driver down
Monday, June 08, 2009
A first appearance hearing will be held Tuesday afternoon for a man accused of driving drunk and killing a young Lawrenceville mother on Sunday.
Constantin Toncz was expected to appear briefly before a Gwinnett County Magistrate Judge at 1:30 p.m. to face vehicular homicide charges related to the death of 25-year-old Sabrina Stanek.
Gwinnett County Detention Center
Constantin Toncz, 39, faces charges of first-degree vehicular homicide, DUI and leaving the scene of an accident involving a death.
Stanek’s father, Mark Stanek, 48, of Lawrenceville, said his daughter was trying to stop Toncz from zooming through her neighborhood at unsafe speeds when she walked down to the street to flag him down around 9 p.m. Sunday.
At the same moment, Toncz apparently lost control of his truck on a sharp curve at Belmont Lane and slammed into Stanek at the curb in front of her house. Stanek was pinned between Toncz truck and her boyfriend’s parked truck, her father said.
“He totaled the boyfriend’s truck, he hit it that hard,” Mark Stanek said. “Sabrina didn’t stand a chance.”
Stanek was a single mother of a 6-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter. Mark Stanek and his wife, Donna, have already raised seven children, but they were in the process of trying to get custody of Stanek’s children on Tuesday.
The family trusts the justice system to take care of Toncz.
“We are strong in the Lord and we know Sabrina is with God,” Mark Stanek said. “We are just hoping out of this tragedy something good will happen.”
If nothing else, Stanek’s father hopes people will learn to slow down in the neighborhood and prevent other accidents.
“I think Sabrina would be happy with that,” he said.
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