MONTGOMERY COUNTY (KYW Newsradio) — After three hours of deliberation, a Montgomery County jury found 57-year-old Everett Clayton guilty of two counts of third-degree murder in a car crash last summer that involved a pregnant woman.
Jurors heard arguments from both the defense and prosecution Wednesday morning on whether the actions leading up to the crash in August of 2022 rise to the level of third-degree murder, or the less severe charges of homicide by vehicle and involuntary manslaughter.
Defense attorney Ben Cooper told the jury Clayton is at fault in the death of 31-year-old Kellie Adams, guilty of homicide by vehicle and involuntary manslaughter, but he told the jury Clayton did not act like a murderer.
Cooper said Clayton did not set out to cause harm but simply made a mistake when he went too fast into a curve on South Park Avenue in Lower Providence, crossing into oncoming traffic and slamming his Ford F-650 dump truck head-on into Adams’ Chevy Tahoe, killing her instantly. Her unborn child was also killed.
Defense attorney Jim Lyons says they plan to appeal the jury's decision.
“I don't quarrel with the way they reached this verdict," he said. "But it is contrary to the law that now stands in Pennsylvania.”
Prosecutor Ed McCann argued the crash was inevitable while showing parts of a 27-minute video Clayton recorded on his phone from the dashboard of the truck, pointing out times when Clayton was driving recklessly and speeding.
McCann also noted Clayton did not have a driver’s license and had been drinking before he drove the truck. While his blood alcohol level was just under the legal limit, McCann says at that point, Clayton was driving a machine of death.
“Anyone who did what [Clayton] did with an 18,000-pound truck, after drinking and without a driver’s license, shows conscious indifference to the value of human life,” he said.
McCann says it’s too early to say what they will seek at sentencing, but the prosecution will ask the sentences be consecutive, and not concurrent.