Man charged in wreck that killed Georgia family

Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. --  A man has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide following the deaths of five members of a south Georgia family in a wreck on Interstate 10 in Baton Rouge.

Dwayne Leggett, 30, of Baton Rouge, had previously been booked with negligent homicide, but the charges were upgraded Saturday after blood-alcohol test results were returned. He also was charged with second-offense driving while intoxicated.

Two days before the Oct. 2 wreck, Leggett was released from a pretrial diversion program he began after a first-offense DWI arrest on April 17. The program requires participants to sign a form admitting guilt, but they do not enter a guilty plea before a judge and can have the arrest erased from the record.

State police said a pickup truck crossed over an overpass and hit the rear of another pickup that was stopped because of road construction. The cab of that truck caught fire, investigators said.

Alondra Brionca, 2, died at the scene, troopers said. Maria Barrillos, 54; her daughters, Sonia Gomez Brionca, 27, and Jacqueline Gomez, 35; and son, Rito Gomez, 22, died within days. All of the victims were from Ashburn, Ga.