Suspect identified in fatal wrong-way crash in Las Vegas last month
A suspected wrong-way driver, who authorities believe was intoxicated when she caused a deadly crash days before Christmas, was on her way home from a party when she hit a car head-on, according to her arrest report.
The suspect in the Dec. 22 wreck, identified Friday as 26-year-old Ashley O’Neil, has been charged with one count of DUI resulting in death, two counts of DUI resulting in substantial bodily harm and one count of driving the wrong way on a one-way road.
She remained held on $75,000 bail at the Clark County Detention Center as of Friday, according to jail records.
The head-on collision took place around 2 a.m. in the southbound lanes of the 215 Beltway, near the Charleston Boulevard exit. O’Neil crashed her northbound Nissan Sentra into an oncoming vehicle, killing the other driver, 41-year-old Roshonda Sawara Thornton, the report states.
First responders had to extricate O’Neil from the Nissan, which, according to the report, “had the odor of intoxicating beverage emitting from inside of it.”
At the time of the crash, O’Neil had three passengers in her car — all of whom suffered serious injuries. The most severely injured passenger suffered broken ribs and required abdominal surgery, according to the arrest report.
The day after the crash, one of the passengers told investigators the group was on their way to the suspect’s house in the area of Lone Mountain Road in the northern valley, some 11 miles away from the site of the crash.
Two separate blood samples were taken from O’Neil to measure her blood alcohol content, although the report does not include the results of the blood tests.
O’Neil is due in Las Vegas Justice Court on March 3 for her preliminary hearing, court records show.
Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.
