A woman was killed, a man was critically injured and two little boys were abandoned in the mangled wreckage after a hit-and-run in Lauderhill, according to police.
Authorities allege that Decarius Jovahn Richards, 19, of Lauderhill, walked away from the crash site on Monday, showing little concern for the well-being of the two people whose SUV he hit, or for his girlfriend’s injured young sons, whom he left in the backseat of his vehicle when he ran off, Lauderhill police said.
Richards — who had no valid Florida driver’s license — was at the wheel of a green BMW at about 11 a.m. that morning when he struck a red Nissan SUV at the intersection of NW 16th Street and North State Road 7, according to the arrest report.
The impact caused the SUV to roll at least twice before it came to rest against a utility pole.
Video from a nearby surveillance camera showed bystanders scrambling to upright the SUV and help the man and woman trapped inside.
The severely injured woman was flown by helicopter to Broward Health Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. The man was taken by ambulance for treatment of life-threatening injuries that included broken ribs and fractures of his spine and pelvis.
A blue Mercedes Benz stopped at the intersection moments later.
The driver, identified by police as 24-year-old Landon Barr, got the kids out of the back seat of the wrecked BMW. Barr then put the two boys in his Mercedes and drove off, according to authorities.
Richards later told detectives that he knew Barr and had reached out to him the morning of the crash. He said he asked Barr to go get the children for him and Barr obliged, according to the probable cause affidavit. Barr could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Police checked several hospitals and found the boys had been taken to Northwest Medical Center in Margate. One of the children had an ankle injury. The other had a broken nose and an injured leg.
They were transferred to Broward Health Medical Center, where detectives met up with the boys’ mother at about 8 p.m.
She said she had been dating Richards for about two months, and he called that morning to tell her that “he was involved in a bad crash, and that her two kids were hurt but ‘not bad hurt,'” according to detectives.
Richards turned himself in to Lauderhill police the following morning.
During questioning, Richards told police that he panicked and left the crash scene without checking on the people in the overturned Nissan or calling 911, the arrest report states.
Richards also told detectives that he walked to his grandparents’ home in Fort Lauderdale after the crash.
He faces seven charges, including leaving the scene of a crash involving death, child neglect without great bodily harm, and driving without a valid license, records show.
Richards was ordered held in the Broward County Jail on bonds totaling $300,000.
The names of the crash victims, the children and their mother were redacted in the arrest report.
Wayne K. Roustan can be reached at wkroustan@sunsentinel.com or 561-379-6119 or on Twitter @WayneRoustan
