Wrong-way driver charged in fatal crash
A 30-year-old Milwaukee man who told police he purposely drove the wrong way on a freeway to escape another car he felt was trying to kill him has been charged in a resulting headon crash that left two people dead and another seriously injured.
Jerry Jay Anderson Jr. faces two counts of first-degree reckless homicide, one of reckless injury and two counts of driving while his license was suspended, causing death. According to the criminal complaint: Anderson was driving a gold Toyota south in the northbound lanes of I-43 near Chase Avenue around 11:15 p.m. on June 24 when he collided head-on with a northbound blue Chevy Cobalt.
A woman in Anderson’s front passenger seat was killed, and another woman in the rear seat suffered extreme injuries, including to one of her eyes.
The female passenger in the Cobalt was killed. Anderson and the second driver were each hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
Department of Transportation cameras showed Anderson going south in what would be the inside lane for northbound traffic for several minutes at regular freeway speed, with his lights on. As he approached the oncoming Cobalt, there was room to get over in the distress lane, but Anderson kept straight, only hitting his brakes immediately before the collision.
The Cobalt was left on its roof, and the Toyota, also badly damaged, wound up still facing south but in the outside lanes of northbound I-43.
The DOT video also revealed a second wrong-way driver, also going south in the northbound lanes, just slightly behind Anderson. After the crash, the other wrong-way driver does a U-turn, stops in the median distress lane, then walks over to the gold Toyota for more than two minutes before re-entering his car and driving away on northbound I-43 as emergency workers arrive at the scene.
The complaint does not provide a description of the second wrong-way vehicle or driver.
Anderson told sheriff ’s detectives that earlier that night, he was in the area of S. 11th and Rogers streets when a car he didn’t recognize began tailgating him. He said he tried to take evasive action but couldn’t shake the other car, which made contact with his Toyota once, spinning him around.
Rather than call 911 or go to a police station or other safe place, Anderson said he went up on the freeway in the wrong direction, thinking his pursuers would not dare follow him.
He said he had no memory of what happened after he began driving the wrong way on the freeway.