Cops: Hit-and-run driver was on errand for mother

A Fulton County magistrate judge on Thursday denied bond for Aimee Michael, the young woman charged in an Easter Sunday hit-and-run wreck that left five people dead.

At an 11 a.m. first appearance hearing, Judge James Altman denied a request from Michael’s attorney, W. Scott Smith, that Michael, 22, be granted bond. He scheduled her next court appearance for May 7.

FULTON COUNTY JAIL

Aimee Michael

RELATED:
• Suspect's BMW seized from home
• Memorial held for S. Fulton family killed in crash
• Woman killed in crash had 'everything going right'
• Video
• BMW sought in Camp Creek crash

Michael was charged with five counts of homicide by vehicle, one count of failure to maintain lane and one count of serious injury by vehicle, hit and run, police said.

Smith asked the judge to grant bond, with the provisions that Michael be under house arrest and wear an ankle monitor.

“If she had come forward, I probably would [agree],” Altman said, adding that Michael instead had “done absolutely nothing to fulfill her responsibility.”

Fulton County police said Thursday that Michael was apparently on an errand to pick up cake and ice cream for her mother when she allegedly hit a Mercedes-Benz, starting a chain reaction wreck that ended with the Mercedes hitting another car head-on. Michael was picked up for questioning Wednesday night and was arrested and charged early Thursday.

“We had received many, many tips from various different ways, and we’ve been trying to follow up with all of them,” Fulton County police detective Melissa Parker said at a 10 a.m. press conference. “I’m not sure how this particular tip came in, but I’m told it was an anonymous tip.

“The women that were brought here were Aimee Michael, her mother and her grandmother. I’m told that her mother had sent her on Easter out for some cake and ice cream,” Parker said. “En route is when the collision occurred. She turned around, she went back home and she put the vehicle in the garage. Did not tell her mother. She told her mother that she did not feel well, had a headache, and went to her room. It is not normal for the mother or the grandmother to ever enter or exit the house through the garage.”

Parker said Michael “didn’t tell her family for a couple of days what had happened, and finally, she broke down and told her mother what had happened. To my knowledge, the rest of the family did not know for two days. After that, I’m told, they were aware.”

Parker said she did not know why the family didn’t come forward before police caught up with them on Wednesday.

Asked if other family members might face charges, Parker said, “right now, it’s going to be up to the D.A.’s office what the additional charges may be. It’s a possibility” that they could face charges.

Some early media reports erroneously stated that Michael’s mother, Sheila Michael, was a principal at Northwood Elementary, a Fulton County school in Roswell. Sheila Michael, who has the same name as the principal but is not related to her, is a teacher at Cascade Elementary, an Atlanta public school.

Parker would not release any details on the repairs that had been made to the BMW or who made those repairs, saying that that information was a part of the ongoing investigation.

Michael was led handcuffed from the Fulton County police major crimes unit off Fulton Industrial Boulevard, where she was being questioned, around 5:15 a.m. Police had been questioning Michael and the two other women in an investigation of the April 12 hit-and-run wreck after they found the BMW they believe was involved in the crash.

An anonymous tip led police Wednesday to a home in the 3900 block of Ailey Avenue in south Fulton County, where the BMW was parked in the driveway. They later searched the home and confiscated the vehicle.

At 6:45 p.m., a plum-colored Ford Expedition pulled into the Walden Park subdivision. When the car went into the garage, three to four Fulton County police officers rushed in as a woman got out of the SUV. A Fulton County SWAT officer then closed the garage door.

Shortly after 7, police left the residence with the three women, who police said had agreed to be questioned.

None of the women was handcuffed but were led to police cars that carried them away.

The women were taken to the Fulton County police major crimes unit. At about 3:30 a.m. Thursday two of the women were released, while police continued to question Michael.

“I’m shocked,” said neighbor Chandra Adams. “The neighborhood is banding together to find out what’s going on in our neighborhood.”

Adams said police first arrived at the Walden Park neighborhood around 10 a.m.

SWAT arrived at 3 p.m. and surrounded the home, Parker said.

“There were other identifying factors that allowed us to enter the house,” Parker said.

Police went into the home, but found no one there, she said.

The car was impounded for further investigation.

On Easter Sunday, Robert and Delisia Carter, as well as the couple’s newborn son, Ethan Blake, and Delisia Carter’s 9-year-old daughter, Kayla, died in the chain-reaction crash near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Police said 43-year-old Tracy Johnson of Atlanta survived the accident in another vehicle, but the impact killed her 6-year-old daughter, Morgan. Tracy Johnson is now listed in satisfactory condition at Grady Hospital.

The Carters’ Mercedes and the BMW are believed to have collided on Camp Creek Parkway between Butner Road and Old Fairburn Road at about 1:45 p.m. Both vehicles crossed the median, and the BMW left the scene.

The Mercedes, however, slammed head-on into a Volkswagen driven by Johnson.

Chandra Adams, who lives in the same neighborhood as Michal, said when SWAT surrounded the home, she saw the three women pull into the neighborhood and quickly make a U-turn at the sight of police.

Delisia Carter’s sister Tanisha Robertson was on the scene Wednesday, saying she had been in Atlanta from her California home ever since the wreck.

Robertson said she lamented having never met Delisia’s youngest child.

“A brand new baby I never got to see is gone,” Robertson said.

— Staff writer Megan Matteucci contributed to this article.