Kim Smith's Ford Focus was only moving at about 11 mph as Sherry Hubert's Chevrolet Lumina careened down Oak Street at close to 100 mph on July 21.
The ensuing collision sent the Focus into a utility pole at 35 mph, a state police accident reconstructionist testified Friday during a preliminary hearing for Ms. Hubert. Ms. Smith, 48, and her sole passenger, Lydia Riley, 58, both of Taylor, were killed.
Magisterial District Judge James A. Gibbons bound Ms. Hubert, 45, over to Lackawanna County Court on all charges, including homicide by motor vehicle while driving under the influence and third-degree murder, at the conclusion of the hearing.
When Taylor Police Sgt. William Roche arrived at Oak and Third streets on that "beautiful summer day," he found the Focus all but crushed near the utility pole it nearly snapped in half.
The collision had thrown
Ms. Riley into the backseat. Ms. Smith lay slumped over the front seat's center console and was not breathing, Sgt. Roche testified Friday.
Once emergency medical personnel arrived and took over CPR for Sgt. Roche, he went to speak to Ms. Hubert, who had already admitted to another officer that she was drunk.
"I could smell the distinct odor of an alcoholic beverage on her breath," Sgt. Roche testified, adding that Ms. Hubert's eyes appeared glossy and she spoke with slurred speech.
The odor could be explained by the two beers she drank that morning and the Four Loko she sipped behind the wheel moments before the crash, according to testimony by Emily McDonough, who was in the passenger seat of Ms. Hubert's car that morning.
Emily, 17, had gone to Ms. Hubert's home with her boyfriend and his brother - the sons of Ms. Hubert's boyfriend - to help her clean her home at 143 Village Drive, Taylor, for money, she testified.
At some point, after Ms. Hubert smoked marijuana and drank two cans of Natural Ice beer, the four of them got into her Lumina to buy cleaning supplies at Walmart on Main Avenue.
Afterward, Ms. Hubert picked up another case of Natural Ice beer, a few packs of cigarettes and a Four Loko at a nearby store and headed home, Emily testified.
As they approached the incline on Oak Street, Ms. Hubert decided she would attempt to "jump the hills" to impress her three juvenile passengers, according to a criminal complaint.
She stopped the car to allow another vehicle ahead of her to get a safe distance from her, handed the Four Loko she had been sipping to Emily in the passenger seat and hit the gas.
"She was talking about some type of feeling in her stomach that she would get" when going over the hills, Emily testified.
Having nearly hit the car ahead of her on the way up Oak Street but failing to jump the hills, Ms. Hubert still decided to turn around at the top of the hill and head back down.
She wanted to pull "belly-floppers," Sgt. Roche testified, by going over the hills at such a speed that the momentum would force the underside of her car into the ground when it landed.
"We just wanted her to stop," Emily testified. "We were screaming like 'Please slow down, please slow down.' ... She said 'I have it under control.' "
The Lumina was still 1,200 feet away from the Focus when the passengers first saw it and began pleading with Ms. Hubert to slow down, Sgt. Roche testified.
He determined the distance by taking each passenger in a police cruiser individually and driving the path of the Lumina. All three independently identified the same location, he testified.
According to state police Cpl. William Hartshorn, the accident reconstructionist, that distance would have allowed Ms. Hubert to fully stop her car - which by then was travelling at between 94 and 96 mph - and still have over 700 feet left between the two vehicles.
The only evidence that Ms. Hubert attempted to stop her car - a trail of skid marks leading to the point of impact - only began about 145 feet before the point of impact, Cpl. Hartshorn testified. When the two cars collided, Ms. Hubert's Lumina was moving at about 84 mph, Cpl. Hartshorn's reconstruction determined.
"She told me she was flying and her words were 'like a bat out of hell,'" Sgt. Roche testified.
A blood test at Regional Hospital later found a 0.208 percent blood-alcohol-content, almost three times the legal driving limit of 0.08 percent, as well as THC, the psychoactive substance found in marijuana.
Despite an argument by Ms. Hubert's attorney, Jason Shrive, that the two counts of third-degree murder were not warranted as the offense lacked malice, Judge Gibbons bound all of the charges over.
She was returned to the Lackawanna County Prison where she is held in lieu of $50,000 bail.
A formal arraignment was scheduled for Dec. 7 at 9 a.m.
Contact the writer: domalley@timesshamrock.com, @domalleytt on Twitter