Judge sentences driver to 20-27 years for 120-mph Charlotte crash that killed five
Dakeia Charles, the driver responsible for a 120-mph crash that killed five people on Charlotte’s outerbelt in 2020, pleaded guilty to five counts of second-degree murder Thursday and was sentenced to 20 to 27 years in prison.
Police said the wreck happened after Charles’ speeding Cadillac changed lanes and slammed into a box truck that ran off the road, careened across the median and collided with two cars traveling the opposite direction.
The July 3 crash killed four members of a Belmont family: Matthew and Andrea Obester and their two daughters, 9-year-old Violet and 12-year-old Elizabeth.
Mark Barlaan, a 58-year-old Bank of America manager, also died. He was a passenger in the other car.
Charles, now 26, pleaded guilty to five counts of second-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, speeding, reckless driving, driving while impaired, and failure to comply with a license restriction. Superior Court Judge Louis A. Trosch, Jr. sentenced him.
Matthew Obester, an Army veteran who worked as a carpenter, had just started a new construction job. Andrea Obester was a talented artist who also ran a nonprofit that rescued small animals. Elizabeth had attended North Belmont Elementary, where her sister, Violet, was a rising third-grader. The girls loved to ride horses with their grandmother.
Lynn Sherrill, who lost her son and granddaughters in the crash, told the judge Thursday that “no words can explain the loss our family and friends have felt over these past two years — the daily reminder that we will never see them grow older.”
Sherrill spoke of her teenage grandson, Jacob, who lost his parents and sisters in the wreck.
“(Charles) has made my grandson Jacob here an orphan at 15 — never to hear his father’s voice or feel his mother’s love or the giggles and pestering of his young sisters again,” she said.
Charles was also injured in the crash. Four hours after the fatal collisions, his blood alcohol content was 0.07, according to a press release issued by the Mecklenburg County district attorney’s office. As part of a previous driving-while-impaired conviction in another county, he was prohibited from driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.04 or higher, the release said.
Speeding still claims scores of lives in NC
The five victims were among the hundreds of North Carolinians killed in speed-related crashes in recent years.
“Death in the Fast Lane,” a 2021 investigation by the Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer, found that extreme speeding — where drivers fly 20, 30, even 50 mph over the speed limit — has become rampant in North Carolina.
And the state’s overwhelmed courts let most speeders off easy. As a result, many in North Carolina are able to drive at dangerous speeds, avoid punishment and remain behind the wheel.
The newspapers’ investigation also found that despite the state’s rapid growth over the past decade, speeding enforcement actually declined over that period. That’s largely because workloads for law enforcement agencies have been increasing far faster than staffing.
Speeding has continued to claim the lives of many North Carolinians this year.
From Jan. 1 to Aug. 12, 262 people died in speed-related crashes in North Carolina, state Department of Transportation data show. During the same period last year, the number of people who died from speed-related collisions was about three percent higher. But the pace of those fatal wrecks continues to exceed that of the 10 years prior to the pandemic.
Among those killed this year: Selma residents Marvin Dave Atkinson and Thatis Eugene Mickens, who died after a speeding Dodge Charger smashed into their truck on May 9. The driver of the Charger, Tanya Renee Terry, led police on a high-speed chase after she was clocked going 112 mph in a 55 mph zone, the state Highway Patrol said.
Speeding continues to cause more highway deaths than drunk driving, which killed 225 people from Jan. 1 to Aug. 12. Overall, 1,040 people died on North Carolina roads during that period — again slightly lower than last year but much higher than the pre-pandemic years.
This story was originally published September 1, 2022 at 4:50 PM.
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