Epileptic motorist from Little Rock gets one year in jail after pickup struck home, killed baby

Lucinda Edwards-Harris
Lucinda Edwards-Harris

A Little Rock woman with epilepsy who killed a baby sleeping in his crib when she crashed her pickup into the baby's bedroom was sentenced Wednesday to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine for misdemeanor negligent homicide.

The punishment decision by a Pulaski County jury ended the two-day trial of 53-year-old Lucinda Edwards-Harris. The sentence was the maximum available to jurors after they had rejected the felony manslaughter charge that prosecutors had filed against her in the November 2016 death of Devon Lazarus.

Edwards-Harris choked up when she told jurors about finding out she had killed a child. She said she blacked out while driving and doesn't remember the crash. She remembers coming to inside her pickup, which was inside someone's home.

"I knew I had destroyed their life, and I wanted to ask their forgiveness," she said, describing how she left a letter at the site of the family's home on Terra Road. "I can't even look at a baby and not think of that baby."

She was driving on Arkansas 367 when her vehicle ran off the road in southeastern Pulaski County, just before a curve in the highway where it becomes Arch Street Pike. She testified that she had no idea she would have a seizure that day.

"I hadn't had a seizure in a long time," she told jurors. "I felt fine. I felt great."

Devon had just celebrated his first birthday three weeks earlier and was recovering from a bone condition. The baby's father had just put the boy in the crib a few minutes before the midafternoon crash. The crash rendered the family's house in southeastern Pulaski County unlivable.

Chris Lazarus denounced the verdict, telling jurors that Edwards-Harris had "murdered" his son and had plunged him and his family into a daily "hell" of remorse and despair that they have yet to overcome.

He's been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and now has so much trouble controlling his temper that his anger has alienated some friends and family, despite counseling, Lazarus said.

Firefighter Brad Vick, one of the first rescuers to reach the scene, told jurors that Edwards-Harris' truck would have gone completely through the home except a rear passenger-side wheel got hung on the frame.

Stacy McCann, a neighbor returning home with his 2-year-old grandson in his truck, said the roaring pickup came within a foot of hitting them. He said the woman's pickup was going so fast that it became airborne when it left the roadway. Another passing motorist, Jason Baker, said the driver never braked. Each man grew emotional as he recalled trying to help the stricken baby.

"When I saw the baby, my first instinct was he was already gone," Baker said.

Reaching the verdict for Circuit Judge Leon Johnson took jurors about three hours.

The decision by the seven men and five women is a finding that Edwards-Harris, a former social worker and school counselor, had overlooked the danger she was putting others in. Deciding her sentence took about nine minutes. Manslaughter carries up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Defense attorney Lott Rolfe urged jurors not to convict his client solely because a child was killed. He called on them to acquit Edwards-Harris entirely, saying the baby's death was not a crime, but a tragic accident that will haunt Edwards-Harris -- a woman who has dedicated most of her life to caring for children -- for the rest of her life.

"Devon's death is going to be a weight on Lucinda for a long time," Rolfe said.

Edwards-Harris believed her epilepsy was under control and that she'd been seizure-free long enough to safely drive, he told jurors. She had voluntarily quit driving in February 2014 after being diagnosed with the condition, Rolfe said.

A manslaughter conviction would mean that jurors believed Edwards-Harris knew she was likely going to suffer a seizure while driving but got behind the wheel anyway, he said.

She'd gotten mixed messages about the extent of her condition from her doctor and from the Pulaski County Special School District, which had denied her long-term disability benefits after having her examined by a physician, Rolfe said.

"This is somebody who thought she had gotten past her seizures and was well enough that she could drive again."

Prosecutors Leigh Patterson and Lauren Eldridge accused Edwards-Harris of deliberately ignoring the danger she was putting everyone else around her in -- just so she could go shopping at an Arch Street flea market that day.

"She knew the risks. She knew it, and she disregarded it anyway," Patterson told jurors. "[Devon] was in the safest place a baby can be. He was where he should've had the safest sleep."

Edwards-Harris should have been even more cautious because amnesia is a side effect of her condition, so she doesn't always know when she's had a seizure, the prosecutor said. Three months to the day before the crash, Edwards-Harris had told her doctor she was still suffering the symptoms of her condition, the prosecutor said.

It was a late 2013 car crash that Edwards-Harris could not remember that led to her seeking medical attention and getting diagnosed with epilepsy in February 2014, Patterson said.

Her treatment included regular warnings from her neurologist -- 16 of them delivered over the 31 months before the crash -- that she must not drive until her condition had stabilized. Arkansas bars motorists with seizure disorders from driving until they've gone a whole year without an episode.

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Metro on 05/20/2018

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