'I lost my mom on Mother's Day': Woman dies after man avoids traffic safety checkpoint, crashes into apartment
A woman was killed over the weekend after a man driving away to avoid a traffic safety checkpoint crashed into her apartment, according to an arrest warrant.
Tarboro Town Manager Troy Lewis also confirmed the news about the Sunday morning crash at the Northgate Apartments at 400 East Northern Blvd.
Jeanette Drew's family said she was asleep in her apartment at around 2 a.m. Sunday when an SUV smashed through the wall, killing Drew and trapping her grandchildren under debris.
An arrest warrant states the driver, Darquavious Lancaster, was driving 100 mph in a 45-mph zone. The warrant shows Lancaster crashed through two apartments.
Lancaster, 18, of Whitakers, is charged with two felonies: fleeing or eluding an arrest with a motor vehicle and death by vehicle. He faces misdemeanor charges of speeding, driving while a license is revoked, possession of marijuana up to 0.5 ounce, injury to real property and two counts of injury to personal property. Tarboro police and arrest documents show Lancaster is also charged with DWI.
In the description of his charges on the warrant, officers say "there was gross impairment of [Lancaster's] faculties due to consumption of an impairing substance."
"I want justice," said Jeanette Drew's daughter, Kendra Drew. "This is something, she was in her bed asleep when she got killed. She was in her bed sleeping. She didn’t deserve this."
Officers were conducting a license checking station at 1 a.m. Sunday on Western Boulevard at Northern Boulevard, according to a news release from Tarboro police.
Police said a red Dodge Journey approached and did not stop at the check station, leading to a short, high-speed chase.
Police said the chase ended when the Journey collided with apartment 28 at the Northgate Apartments. The release states several of Drew's family members were also hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
"When I open the door, you see a car, it was sitting in my room," Kendra Drew said. "My kids, I didn’t know where they were, they were pushed outside the apartment in the bed."
Kendra Drew said she had just gotten her mom a Mother’s Day gift hours before she was killed.
"It’s just so hurtful. I lost my mom on Mother’s Day," Kendra Drew said.
Authorities are holding Lancaster at the Edgecombe County jail on a $500,000 bond.
On Monday, WRAL News went to the address on Lancaster's warrant looking for a response from his family to the charges, but the home was vacant.
Family members have set up a GoFundMe page in Drew's honor.
