A Gwinnett County man with a history of arrests is jailed on charges that he killed a mother and daughter in a drunken hit-and-run with his pickup truck.
Police said that when the white pickup hit the woman and 6-year-old girl, then drove off, they were walking on a sidewalk.
Spencer T. Prigmore, 43, is charged with two counts of first-degree vehicular homicide and driving while intoxicated in the deaths Thursday night of Maria Cervantes Maldonado, 36, and her daughter Melissa.
Police said Prigmore had cut off and hit another vehicle in a lane change before fatally striking the Lilburn woman and her daughter on Lawrenceville Highway and speeding away. The deaths occurred about 6:30 p.m.
According to a Lilburn police incident report, Prigmore was driving west on Lawrenceville Highway when he “made a sudden lane change from the other westbound lane” and “barely” struck another vehicle behind him before he drove onto the sidewalk.
Some witnesses followed the truck and told police where its driver eventually pulled over, police said.
Prigmore and a woman were inside the pickup, police spokeswoman Nikki Perry said.
“Both subjects gave outward physical manifestations of being under the influence of some type of intoxicants,” Perry said.
Perry said Prigmore refused to submit to an alcohol and drug test to determine how intoxicated he was, and a search warrant was issued to allow officers to draw a blood sample to send to the GBI Crime Lab.
The woman in the truck with Prigmore was not arrested, police said. But she was held at police headquarters until around midnight, when she was coherent enough to tell police her name and address, Perry said.
Police took the woman to her mother’s home and released her without any charges, Perry said.
Prigmore has six prior arrests in Gwinnett County, according to court records, including charges of battery in 2006 and providing alcohol to a minor in 2009, to which he pleaded guilty.
He also faces charges in Thursday’s deaths of failure to report an accident, causing death or injury and reckless driving. He is in the Gwinnett County jail without bond.
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