Las Vegas – Lakeisha Nicole Holloway, who allegedly intentionally ran down people with her vehicle on the Las Vegas Strip last month, killing one person and injuring dozens more, has been charged with a total of 71 charges, which sum up to more than 1,000 years worth of jail time.
Holloways was already facing murder and child endangerment charges but now other criminal responsibilities were added Wednesday, including 34 new attempted murder and 34 new battery with a deadly weapon charges, after authorities said she intentionally plowed a car into a crowd of pedestrians on December 20th outside the Planet Hollywood and Paris Las Vegas resorts.
“These additional charges reflect the totality of the lives impacted by the defendant’s actions,” Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said in a statement. “If convicted of all charges, the defendant may be sentenced to over 1,000 years in prison.”
The charges include one count of murder as Jessica Valenzuela, 32 years-old, of Buckeye, Arizona, died in the crash. 30 counts of attempted murder as police and firefighters reported that more than 30 coming from California, Colorado, Florida, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington state, Mexico and Canada were also injured. The 2 child endangerment charge stems from an 11-year-old victim who was hit and allegations that Holloway’s 3-year-old daughter was in the car at the time of the incident. The girl wasn’t injured.
Authorities decided not to charge Holloway for leaving the scene after the accident. They also decided to leave her uncharged for driving under the influence of marijuana despite the fact that a toxicology report showed Holloway had traces of marijuana and its metabolic byproduct in her system. Prosecutors said it was not enough to alter her mental state.
Holloway told police that she was homeless and “stressed out” at the time of the crash. Her defense attorney, Joseph Abood, said Wednesday that she’s doing somewhat better but that she is still in a difficult state of mind.
Holloways entered the courtroom on Wednesday, December 23th, 2015, for her initial appearance at Regional Justice Center which was over in about five minutes. Her next hearing will be on February 4th at 8 a.m.
Source: ABC News
So why isn’t the death penalty an option ?