Driver arrested on DWI, other charges in fiery Charlotte fatal head-on wreck
Police arrested a 34-year-old man on Friday in connection with a fiery fatal head-on wreck in Charlotte.
Estuardo Menchu Cocinero was pronounced dead at the scene after a speeding, out-of-control driver barreled across a grassy median and hit his car at about 1:30 a.m. Feb. 4 on East W.T. Harris Boulevard, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said.
On Friday, police arrested Kevin Samkia, the driver of the 2016 Maserati Ghibli S luxury car that hit Cocinero, after Samkia was released from a hospital. Samkia was seriously injured in the wreck, according to police.
Police said they interviewed Samkia and served arrest warrants charging him with felony death by vehicle, driving while impaired and reckless driving, according to a CMPD news release.
Samkia was freed on $103,000 bail, Mecklenburg County jail records show.
The crash occurred just south of Grier Road in the University area, police said.
Samkia ran off the right side of northbound W.T. Harris Boulevard and “over-corrected, which caused the Maserati to travel back onto the roadway, over the grassy median and into the oncoming lanes of southbound East W. T. Harris Boulevard,” according to the CMPD release.
When Samkia hit Cocinero’s 2015 Scion FR-S sports car, both veered off the right side of the road, where flames erupted, police said.