GSP updates at-fault driver in May crash that killed 3

Published 2:21 pm Thursday, June 2, 2022

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In its official crash report released Thursday, Georgia State Patrol has corrected the at-fault driver in a deadly crash that killed three people on May 14.

The crash killed LaGrange College baseball players Jacob Brown and Stephen Bartolotta and LaGrange native Rico Dunn. GSP’s report Thursday said that Dunn, driving a 2008 GMC Sierra, was the at-fault driver in the accident, which contradicts information from GSP’s preliminary report released after the accident. 

According to the crash report released Thursday, the GMC Sierra Dunn was driving improperly passed a 2019 Honda Accord, striking the 2015 Honda Accord driven by Brown. Bartolotta was a passenger in the 2015 Honda Accord. 

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The preliminary GSP report had claimed that the 2015 Honda Accord occupied by Brown and Bartolotta had improperly passed a 2019 Honda Accord and struck Dunn’s 2008 GMC Sierra. 

When asked why the information changed, Lt. Mark Riley,  the Director of Public Information for GSP, said what was provided on May 15 was a preliminary summary. During the investigation, the information changed based on a more detailed investigation by the Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team (SCRT).

“What happened with that, from my understanding, is, like I said, it’s a preliminary investigative summary. And of course, it’s subject to change,” Riley said. “And, once they were able to get more involved with looking at the evidence, I think there was some witness statements that were contradictory. Some of the stuff [in the initial report] that they based off some witness statements … may have ultimately been inaccurate. Once the SCRT team got involved in all that — and they do obviously a very thorough investigation — some of the evidence that they found … changed the way the wreck was originally reported.”

Riley said the SCRT investigation is still ongoing in this incident, and a toxicology report is not available yet. 

Both the preliminary summary and crash report can be found below.