A Douglas County man will not face vehicular-homicide charges for running over a pedestrian because there is no evidence he drove recklessly or was drunk, said a spokesman for the district attorney.
Brian Anthony Russell, 51 of Douglasville, killed 56-year-old Audrey Hartley as she was crossing a street around midnight March 21, police say. Russell, who fled the scene and turned himself in almost two days later, has been indicted for a felony hit-and-run.
“The evidence right now doesn’t support a vehicular homicide,” said David Emadi, a prosecutor with the DA.“The reality is, it is either a complete accident or a vehicular homicide and by fleeing the scene and waiting to turn himself in, it makes it almost impossible for us to know whether it was a vehicular homicide or not.”
Russell would have had to be either driving recklessly or been legally intoxicated to be indicted for a vehicular homicide, a crime that carries up to a 15-year sentence as opposed to a 5 years for a hit-and-run conviction, Emadi said.
Russell was the only witness investigators found to interview regarding the actual incident, Emadi said. Investigators could not confirm whether he was intoxicated because the elapsed time period between the event and arrest was too great to show whether he had alcohol in his bloodstream, Emadi said.
Hartley was killed while attempting to cross at a stoplight at the intersection of Midway Road and Fairburn Road. Nasir Javaid, the clerk at a gas station on the corner of Fairburn and Midway roads, told Channel 2's Tyisha Fernandes that he saw Hartley walking, then went to the back of the store for a moment.
“That’s when I heard the bang,” he said. “We went outside, saw her laying right there by my driveway, that’s when I called 911.”
Russell is still in the Douglas County jail after a magistrate judge initially refused to set a bond. A superior court judge can now set a bond since he has been indicted, Emadi said.
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