An 18-year-old charged with causing a car crash that killed two of his high school classmates and injured a pregnant woman and her baby made his first court appearance on Tuesday.
Abraham Miranda, of Salt Lake City, was charged last week in 3rd District Court with two second-degree felony counts of manslaughter and one count of class A misdemeanor reckless endangerment in connection with the February crash.
On Tuesday, a judge set a scheduling hearing for Aug. 18. Meanwhile, Miranda is being held at the Salt Lake County jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.
Defense attorney Greg Skordas, who has been representing the teen, said he plans to try and obtain a supervised release, or a reduction in bail, at future hearings.
The manslaughter counts are each punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
The fatal crash occurred on Feb. 16 at about 11:30 a.m., as Miranda was driving north on 300 West at about 95 mph in a 40 mph zone, charges state.
Seventeen-year-old Vidal Pacheco-Tinoco was in the front passenger seat, and 18-year-old Dylan Emilio Hernandez was in the back seat.
Both were classmates of Miranda at Salt Lake City’s West High School. As they approached 700 North, 32-year-old Amy Elizabeth Stevenson-Wilson, who was 34 weeks pregnant, was driving east approaching the intersection, according to charges.
Miranda “attempted an evasive maneuver, struck the center median, traveled into oncoming traffic and collided” with Stevenson-Wilson’s SUV.
Stevenson-Wilson’s SUV rotated clockwise upon impact, charges say, and traveled west into a building at 721 N. 300 West.
Miranda told police that he was “going fast” at speeds above 60 mph because “he was in a hurry to get to the arcade,” charges state. Stevenson-Wilson was heading to the Salt Lake Temple that day, her brother told The Salt Lake Tribune in February.
Both Pacheco-Tinoco and Hernandez died of blunt force injuries, an autopsy revealed.
Students and community members held a vigil for the teens at West High School on Feb. 17, where they signed posters with the boys’ photos on them.
Stevenson-Wilson suffered “traumatic brain injury, internal bleeding requiring the removal of her kidney and spleen and 15 broken bones,” charges state.
Doctors at University Hospital performed an “emergency C-section,” but informed Stevenson-Wilson “that her baby [a girl] would have brain damage and trouble using her left side.”
A witness told police he saw Miranda’s vehicle heading north before it got to the scene of the crash and that Miranda and another vehicle, a silver SUV, were traveling side by side, as though they were “dragging.”
He told police he saw Miranda “put his hand out the window and shake it at the other vehicle.”
Another witness who was in the left-turn lane on northbound 300 West told police he’d seen Miranda’s vehicle going “very fast” and that farther up the road, a diesel truck was “slowly turning into a parking lot on the east side of 300 West.”
He said the speeding car was going “too fast to slow down or wait for the truck to finish exiting the roadway,” and it swerved across all northbound lanes from right to left, crashed through the center median, crossed southbound lanes and hit Stevenson-Wilson’s vehicle.
A third witness was heading west on 700 North, and wanted to go south on 300 West, which requires drivers to turn right onto northbound 300 West and make a U-turn around the median. He told police he saw a minivan driving north about a block south and thought he had enough time to make the turn, but after he’d begun driving, he saw Miranda’s car swerve out from behind the minivan. The witness accelerated because Miranda’s car was “close.”
He saw Miranda swerve right and then appear to “overcorrect left and hit the median.”
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