Nevada Trooper Is Charged

A Nevada Highway Patrol trooper was charged Monday with nine felony counts of reckless driving and involuntary manslaughter in a crash that killed four people.

Trooper Joshua Corcran was driving 113 mph on Interstate 15 on Feb. 19, hurrying to get home for dinner and an online history test when his patrol car slammed into a Cadillac going 52 mph, killing the driver and three passengers, police said.

Charging Corcran with “driving at such a rate of speed to endanger” others, Clark County Dist. Atty. David Roger opted to add felony manslaughter charges to the four charges of felony reckless driving resulting in death that police had recommended. Last week, police also recommended that Corcran be charged with one count of reckless driving resulting in substantial bodily harm and Roger concurred.

Corcran told his supervisor after the crash that “he was making a lane change and all of a sudden that car was right there in front of him and the next thing he knew the air bag was hitting him,” according to a police report.

Blame for the accident “can be solely attributed to Joshua Corcran,” the report said.

Three backseat passengers of the 1988 Deville were ejected and pronounced dead at the scene.

Sixteen-year-old Cecilia Lopez Cruz, four months pregnant, was the only survivor in the Cadillac. She had injuries to her pelvis, torso and head. Her pregnancy was not affected.

The driver of the Cadillac, Cruz’s 21-year-old husband Victor De La Cruz-De Leon, was killed. Also killed were Cruz’s 21-year-old sister, Reymunda Lopez-Vazquez; the sister’s step-uncle, 42-year-old Jose Sanchez Lopez; and a 19-year-old family friend, Jose Roberto Mejia Lang.

Authorities said all were illegal immigrants from Mexico who were living and working in the St. George area of southwest Utah.

Corcran’s lawyer, Steve Wolfson, a Las Vegas city councilman, has said a thorough investigation should show that the crash was a tragic accident.

Police were able to determine Corcran’s speed through an analysis of the powertrain control module provided by Ford Motor Co. in Detroit. His vehicle was traveling 119 mph before slowing somewhat in the last 10 seconds before the crash.