Victims remained shaken a day after a heavy-duty pickup truck struck more than a dozen vehicles, leaving a 15-mile-long path of destruction, injury and death that stretched through parts of DeKalb and Gwinnett counties.
“He was able to just ram and ram,” said Jeanetta Johnson, whose car was struck Wednesday night on Memorial Drive in DeKalb. “It was just a nightmare. I just knew that we were going to die.”
Michael Owen Snider, 70, of Stone Mountain is being held without bond at the Gwinnett County jail on charges of drunken driving, vehicular homicide, serious injury by vehicle, reckless driving and following too closely. Authorities said additional charges are pending.
Police said Snider’s gray 2006 Ford F-250 Super Duty pickup truck only stopped after crashing into a restaurant in unincorporated Snellville, moments after a 73-year-old native of Ethiopia, Mintiwab Woldeyhans, was killed in a collision on U.S. 78. The woman’s 51-year-old daughter, Yeshihareg Abebe, was critically injured.
All totaled, Snider is accused of causing eight wrecks in DeKalb and at least 10 more in Gwinnett. No one answered the door at Snider’s home Thursday afternoon, and the name of his attorney was unavailable.
Witnesses said the driver appeared to be purposely aiming at and ramming other cars as if he were in a bumper car and not a 7,500-pound lethal weapon.
Jeanetta and Manuel Johnson said they were driving down Memorial Drive, heading toward their home in Lilburn on Wednesday night when they noticed a pickup truck following at an uncomfortably close distance.
After a few miles, the couple said the truck accelerated and slammed into their vehicle. It then backed up and rammed them again. It crashed into their car a total of four times, Jeanetta Johnson said.
Johnson said she then saw the truck strike and repeatedly ram three more vehicles before continuing on up the road.
According to DeKalb County police reports, one motorist reported that the driver of the truck asked him “Do you know who I am?” He then added, “I do whatever I want.”
Adama Keita of Decatur was at a red light after exiting I-285 at Covington Highway when his Nissan 350Z was hit from behind around 7:30 p.m. Keita was the first person hit in the string of wrecks, and he immediately called police.
“When he hit the car, he wanted to leave but the traffic was backed up,” Keita said of the driver.
Then, after struggling to get out of his truck and stumbling, the driver offered Keita money, he said. That’s when the driver asked Keita whether he knew who he was. Keita didn’t.
Worried that the driver was going to leave the scene, Keita said he again called 911 with a warning, saying, “If y’all don’t stop him, he’s going to end up killing someone.”
Less than an hour later, Woldeyhans was killed when her 2000 Toyota Camry was rear-ended. The impact caused the car to lurch forward and lodge underneath a tractor-trailer that was stopped to the left of the Camry. Woldeyhans’ daughter, Abebe, remains at Emory Eastside Hospital with a traumatic brain injury and a broken collarbone.
According to relatives, Abebe opened her eyes Thursday when her name was called and squeezed visitors’ hands. She was not able to communicate because she is on a respirator and she still doesn’t know her mother is dead, her brother-in-law Melkamu Damte said.
Woldeyhans was at the center of a large family, Damte said. She had seven children and more than 20 grandchildren whom she loved to cook for and baby-sit. Many of them gathered to weep and console one another Thursday at Damte’s home in Loganville.
“No human being committed this crime,” said Damte, smiling sadly as he sorted through pictures of Woldeyhans and Abebe on his cellphone. “He hit a lot of cars. It’s very, very sad. I have no words. We just are very shocked, very sad and heartbroken.”
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