Blog Post

Man Charged in Fatal Crash


March 19, 2008
Topic: Drunk Driving Accidents

It was an accident that bought to mind the deaths of the Coble children last year, when their car was rear-ended by a trailer. Early in February this year, three young children and their grandmother were killed in Arkansas in a similar accident that eliminated an entire generation of a family in a horrible manner.

The crash occurred on February 6 at 2:40 am. The Crapps' family was returning from a vacation in Pensacola, Florida. The three children, 9-year-old Jada, 7-year-old Hunter and 3-year-old Kaden were with their grandmother Althea Crapps, who was driving. The children's mother, her aunt and her boyfriend followed in their car. A red pickup driven by Steven William, a 28-year-old man from Bryant, was heading in the wrong direction. Apparently, troopers already had been made aware that a red pickup truck was going the wrong way in the northbound lane with its headlights off.

By the time troopers could reach the spot where the pickup was last sighted going the wrong way, he had already crashed into the Crapps' car.

All four occupants of the car died instantly. According to the passengers in the car that was traveling behind them, they didn't even see the red pickup before it collided into the vehicle.

On Tuesday, Steven Williams was charged with 4 counts of homicide. Since the crash he has been detained at the county detention center pending a cash bail amount of $200,000. He had been briefly taken to the Jefferson Regional Medical Center for treatment of injuries sustained during the crash.

Williams was so drunk at the time of the crash he could barely speak. According to police officers, who first arrived at the crash scene, he was unsteady on his feet, reeked of alcohol and had a blank and vacant stare. He was sweating profusely, and was wearing Mardi Gras beads. He apparently told investigators that he had just attended a party in Little Rock. In short, this was not a man who was slightly above the alcohol limit. He was too drunk to stand on his feet, and had no business being anywhere behind the wheel. This wasn't a teenager who made a youthful mistake. This was a grown adult who showed such irresponsibility it's hard to see how he can be found anything but guilty.

We hope the story doesn't end here. An entire generation of a family was wiped out because Williams was too careless to ask somebody for a ride home, or too cheap to fork out the money to hire a cab. In his alcohol induced stupor, he endangered countless other vehicles on the road by driving the wrong way before finally causing the ultimate damage to a family. The children's mother will find it hard to think beyond the fact that she lost all her children in one shot, but we hope she realizes that there are avenues to be explored to make Williams pay in a manner that will really hurt. It won't heal her suffering, but it will ensure that a homicidal maniac will be too financially crippled to get back to a normal life.

If you have been injured, or a loved one has been killed in an accident caused by a drunk driver, you need an experienced California personal injury attorney to defend your rights. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.


The California personal injury attorneys at The Reeves Law Group represent victims of accidents, injuries and wrongful death throughout California from our offices in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Diego County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, Ventura County, Fresno County, Kern County, Sacramento County, San Fernando Valley, Long Beach, Antelope Valley, Torrance, Glendale, Bakersfield, Santa Ana, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Ontario, and Victorville.