Driver charged in fatal Brac January crash

Fatal crash on Cayman Brac 9 January 2015

(CNS): A 22-year-old man from Cayman Brac has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving in connection with a fatal smash that happen in January. Nine months after the second road fatality this year, Jefferson Laurendo, who was arrested just a few days after the crash, has now been charged and is due to appear in court next month. The collision, in which Raoul Muhammad Scott (19) was killed, happened along Dennis Foster Road, Stake Bay, on 9 January.

According to a police report at the time, Scott was driving a red Honda Civic east when the smash happened near to the junction of Ocean Villa Road. Laurendo was in a white Honda Civic travelling in the same direction as Scott when the cars crashed. Scott died shortly after arriving at the Faith Hospital.

Laurendo was arrested just two days after the crash but a spokesperson from the RCIPS said it was not particularly unusual that a decision to charge the man has taken nine months.

“Fatal MVAs can often be complex investigations that require expert analysis, sometimes outside expert analysis, in order to substantiate charges. This often takes time. There is nothing untoward in the time it has taken to bring charges in this matter; we are just ensuring that proper evidence has been gathered, as is our obligation to do,” the RCIPS spokesperson stated.

Scott was the second person killed on Cayman Brac on the roads in 2015, but so far this year a total of nine people have died on roads across the Cayman Islands. The first victim of the year was also killed in Cayman Brac.  Jose Abel Zelaya (49) of West End, Cayman Brac, was killed when he lost control of his Honda on 2 January, running off the road and colliding with a wooden fence post before the vehicle burst into flames.

Jessie Perry, who died in a Jamaican hospital early this week more than a week after the crash, was the ninth victim. She too was involved in a smash where the vehicle ignited after the car had flipped when it collided with a steep curb on the West Bay road, on Grand Cayman. A 32-year-old man has been arrested in connection with causing her death but he has not yet been charged.