86-year-old woman ordered to stand trial in fatal Southpointe crash
Minutes after Doris White fatally struck a motorcyclist with her SUV while turning left across oncoming traffic into Southpointe, she remarked to investigators that she’d just taken the vehicle to get cleaned.
“Can you believe I just had this car washed? Now look at it,” Cecil Township police Officer Cody Klempay testified to what White told him as they walked around the disabled SUV to show her the amount of damage from the crash.
Crash photos from the scene showed heavy damage to the front right bumper of White’s vehicle, and Klempay said that the motorcyclist’s head appeared to strike the SUV’s windshield, parts of which were caved in from the impact.
The 86-year-old Cecil Township woman is charged with felony homicide by vehicle and misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter in connection with the March 21, 2022, crash at Southpointe Boulevard and Morganza Road that killed motorcyclist William Ostrowski. White’s preliminary hearing was held Friday morning in Washington County Central Court, where District Judge Lou McQuillan ordered her to stand trial on both charges, along with several traffic citations.
Brandt Watters, who was waiting at the stop light on Southpointe Boulevard, witnessed the crash and testified during the hearing that he saw White’s SUV turn left from Morganza Road into the path of Ostrowski’s motorcycle traveling in the opposite direction.
“She approached the light and made an immediate left. He went over her SUV and landed on the roadway in front of my vehicle,” Watters said, before adding that he called 911 and then got out of his car to help Ostrowski. “He wasn’t able to speak. He was moaning.”
Ostrowski, 78, of Canonsburg, was taken to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, where he died of blunt force trauma.
Cpl. Todd Stephenson, a crash reconstructionist with state police, investigated the accident and said he did not think speed was a factor for either vehicle. But if both northbound and southbound traffic on Morganza Road had green lights, White should have yielded to Ostrowski’s motorcycle before turning left, Stephenson said.
White’s defense attorney, Christopher Blackwell, argued that Stephenson had no evidence that his client didn’t have a green arrow at the time of the crash. He added that White’s view may have been obstructed by other vehicles in the turn lane.
However, Klempay testified that White told him she thought both directions of Morganza had a green light at the time of the crash.
Blackwell asked McQuillan to dismiss the criminal charges because there was no proof that White acted recklessly while driving her vehicle.
“The testimony we have is that crashes (at the intersection) are common,” Blackwell said. “She’s not flying through the intersection. She’s not playing chicken on the interstate. She’s making a left-hand turn.”
Deputy District Attorney Cassidy Gerstner called White’s vehicle a “lethal weapon” and countered that there is legal precedent for charging drivers who disobey traffic signals and cause fatalities in crashes.
“The defendant had a clear view of traffic and failed to yield to the motorcycle at that intersection,” Gerstner said. “Everyone in the commonwealth – young or old – has a duty to operate their vehicle with care.”
McQuillan agreed with Gerstner’s argument and bound the charges over for trial.
White, who is free on $5,000 unsecured bond, was charged by Cecil Township police on July 11, nearly 16 months after the crash.