Woman guilty in fatal Lynn crash

PEABODY – A jury convicted a city woman of motor-vehicle homicide in a September 2012 crash that killed a young man and seriously injured his twin brother as the two walked home from a convenience store.”She only needed two seconds and had 6.98,” Essex Assistant District Attorney Erin Bellavia said Monday in Peabody District Court. “I can’t tell you what she was doing in that car for 6.98 seconds – I can’t tell you she was rifling through purse, eating food ? we don’t know. I can tell you, and I submit to you, we know what she wasn’t doing: she wasn’t looking at the road.”Angela Okonkwo, 38, of 339 Linwood St., Lynn. was convicted of motor-vehicle homicide by negligent operation in connection with a September 2012 motor-vehicle crash in Austin Square, in which Riley McManus, 22, was seriously injured and his twin brother, Dillon McManus, was killed. Okonkwo was also charged with a civil infraction of a crosswalk violation.Although the incident occurred in Lynn, the trial began Thursday at Peabody District Court in a special court session for cases that remain open past the time standards established by the Commonwealth.Witnesses testified that on Sept. 18, 2012, Riley and Dillon McManus walked to the 7-Eleven in Austin Square across the street from their family home on Boston Street. It was a trip the brothers took many times and always using the crosswalks that start from just outside their home’s side door, Riley McManus testified.But as the twins walked home across Boston Street at approximately 11 p.m., a Hummer driven by Okonkwo struck the twins. Okonkwo pulled over immediately and called police, reporting the crash. The boys’ father, Gerry McManus, came outside to see what had happened – not knowing the victims were his sons.Gerry McManus testified Thursday that Riley would not stop “just screaming” and Dillon “looked like he was shot out of a cannon.”Riley McManus testified his injuries included a broken pelvis and neck and a shattered hip. He said he only gradually regained memory of the events surrounding the incident but does not remember the crash. Dillon McManus never regained consciousness and was taken off life support a few days later.During closing statements Monday afternoon, Bellavia told the jury how the crash investigation concluded Okonkwo was traveling at 33 miles per hour and braked a second before hitting Riley McManus, who was subsequently pushed into Dillon, while the two were walking side-by-side in the crosswalk.The investigator also concluded the brothers were in the crosswalk for 6.98 seconds before the crash. Moreover, a driver needed an average of two seconds to see and react to the twins given the speed the vehicle was traveling, the time of night, and that there were two pedestrians, according to the investigator’s testimony as recounted by Bellavia.”She needed at least two seconds and had almost seven,” Bellavia said. Then she looked at her watch and began counting aloud. “One, two, three, four, five, six, almost seven: when you’re driving a car, I submit to you, that’s a long time.”Defense attorney Mark Miliotis questioned whether the investigator’s conclusions (and Riley McManus’ memory of events) were enough to make Okonkwo “a criminal,” however.”I don’t think the case is about a witness using deductions and using formulas,” Miliotis argued in his closing statement. (The defense called no witnesses.) Rather, Miliotis asked jurors to consider “what the operator could have done that she didn’t or did do … what did she do definitively wrong.”But Bellavia said the Commonwealth had only one thing to prove.”I’m not asking you to find her to be a bad person, you don’t have to find that she had malice or intended to hit Riley and Dillon McManus,” Bellavia stated. “I’m asking you to find her negligent, I’m asking you to find that she failed to use the standard of care that a reasonable person driving at 11 at night on Boston Street would have used.”The jury deliberated for approximately 10 minute