Trotwood crash: 1 death ruled accidental by coroner, 2 still undetermined

ajc.com

TROTWOOD- The Montgomery County Coroner has ruled one death in a Trotwood crash that killed three people as accidental. Two other deaths are still undetermined, according to a release.

Leah Smith, 35, of Dayton was headed east on Little Richmond Road with her 3-year-old son in a 2007 Mazda CX-9 around 8:40 p.m. when she reached the Olive Road intersection. There, her car was struck by a 2017 Chevrolet Cruze driven by a 19-year-old driver who went through a red light, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The crash killed the other driver’s two passengers and injured Smith’s young son.

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Kent E. Harshbarger, Montgomery County Coroner, ruled that the cause of Smith’s death is multiple trauma and was an accident. He has not determined the cause of death of the other two victims, Elgin Wilson, 18 of Dayton and Michael Stephens, 18, of Trotwood. Stephens was was a part of the Trotwood championship football team and a 2020 graduate of the school. He was set to play at Ohio Dominican this fall.

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Two other people were injured in the crash, though their conditions are unknown.

Noah Driscoll said he was on his way to work Thursday afternoon when he found out that Smith, the mother of his two oldest children — a 14-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter — was killed in a crash.

“The information that I received was that my kids’ mom was sitting at this intersection at Little Richmond and Olive Road. The light was red. I guess allegedly it was some people racing or driving fast down Olive. The light turned green, she pulled out. When she pulled out they hit her and her vehicle, I guess it flipped over and it hit that tree down there and it killed her instantly,” Driscoll said.

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