A woman killed a patient at an assisted living facility in Knoxville when she drove her minivan into the building, according to police.
Eleasah Williams, 24, was arrested on Saturday afternoon and charged with vehicular homicide while reckless. She was booked into the Knox County Jail with a $75,000 bond.
The crash occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning. According to the Knoxville Police Department, officers responded to Shannondale Assisted Living Facility at 7350 Middlebrook Pike around 5:15 a.m. after receiving reports of a crash. According to police, the vehicle “crashed completely into the room, striking and killing the occupant,” who was later identified as Walter Humphrey, 96.
A photo of the crash shows the entire minivan inside the building, which has shattered the brick wall and dislodged anything in its path. The absence of skid marks on the surrounding grass suggested that the vehicle had flown through the air before landing on the wall.
According to authorities, the driver, believed to be Williams, was removed from the vehicle and transported to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Following her release, she was booked into the county jail.
Court documents reveal the harrowing events leading up to the crash.
According to records reviewed by local outlet WBIR, police were initially dispatched to an apartment complex for a domestic disturbance after someone reported Williams as “suicidal and homicidal” and “wanting to kill herself and others.”
Williams later admitted to taking several prescription medications and vaping THC before driving at an illegally high speed and attempting suicide, according to the records. Police believe the driver sped from an apartment complex on Woodview Lane across four lanes of Middlebrook Pike and into one of the assisted living facility’s bedrooms.
Humphrey’s death shocked the community.
“We hate it for our neighbors and friends at Shannondale. “We love all of those people,” Troy Forrester, the lead pastor at Middlebrook Pike United Methodist, told Knoxville-based WVLT. “Our prayers are extended to him, his family, and all of the residents of that area that were affected by this tragedy.”
Another local resident told the outlet Humphrey’s death was “tragic,” describing it as a “very hard hit for the family that had the person there being cared for.”
