May 19, 2016
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
A Lawton man has been arraigned on two counts of manslaughter in the first degree – in the pedestrian deaths of two Mangum residents. One of the victims was a grandmother and the other her granddaughter.
40-year-old Auntra Lawan Edmonds case is set for a pre-trial hearing next month in Greer County District Court in the May, 2016 deaths of 59-year-old Wanda M. Perry and one-year-old Aniya Jade Perry who were struck and killed on a city street in Mangum.
Police believe it was Edmonds who was driving a blue, Pontiac Aztec south on Louis Tittle just before a thunderstorm went through Greer County. However, when police arrived on the scene, no one was in the front seat of the vehicle.
Mangum Police Chief Scott Paxton said at the time of the arrest through collaboration with other law enforcement agencies, Edmonds was found at an apartment complex in Norman.
According to a probable cause affidavit, witnesses say they stated they heard a loud crash and went to observe. Later they told police they saw a blue, Pontiac Aztec traveling south on Louis Tittle. It drove off the right side of the road for an unknown reason traveling about a block. At one point, the car hit a small flatbed trailer, knocking it into a pickup truck, knocking the truck into a yard and then striking three other parked vehicles.
After hitting the vehicles, it continued across a yard where it struck and killed Perry and her granddaughter. From there, the Pontiac continued in a southeast direction where it hit a fire hydrant and finally a tree.
Witnesses then ran to the driver’s door of the vehicle and spoke to a man with a blue T-shirt and facial hair who asked if the people he hit were okay. The court document says officers on the scene retrieved a driver’s license belonging to the driver. It was later shown to the witness who confirmed that the picture on the driver’s license matched the individual with whom they had spoken.
The court document also says that the alleged driver was removed from the rear seat of the vehicle by Emergency Medical Service attendees and attended to as was another passenger who was removed from the vehicle. Both were transported for medical treatment.
According to the probable cause affidavit, EMS personnel advised that there was an odor about the alleged driver like that normally associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages and multiple alcoholic beverage containers were alleged to be in plain view in the passenger compartment of the vehicle.
According to Paxton, Edmonds was there in the car when police arrived. Earlier reports indicated that Edmonds may have fled the scene.
He was arraigned last Thursday and his case is set for a pre-trial hearing on April 6 at 9:30 in Mangum.
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