Police: Driver in fatal Bethel Park crash did not have valid license
The 21-year-old driver who crashed her car into a telephone pole in Bethel Park early Tuesday — killing herself and two passengers — was driving with a suspended or revoked driver’s license, according to Allegheny County Police.
Paige Nicole Smith had been cited three times in the past two years for driving on a suspended license, court records show. She was first cited in December 2015 in Pittsburgh, again this past February in Bethel Park and most recently on April 2 in Castle Shannon, court records show.
Ms. Smith, Bianca Herwig, 23, of McDonald, and Heather Camisa, 17, of Finleyville, were killed in the crash, which occurred about 1 a.m. Tuesday in the 5600 block of Library Road. A fourth woman in the vehicle, Brooke Molnar, 21, remained hospitalized Wednesday.
It was unclear Wednesday what prompted authorities to suspend Ms. Smith’s license. She pleaded guilty to the first two driving-while-suspended infractions, as well as to speeding in one case and failing to have proper registration and title paperwork in the other. The third case, in Castle Shannon, was pending when she died.
Ms. Smith was not a stranger to Bethel Park police, Chief Tim O’Connor said Wednesday.
“She is a person who has been known to this department for many years, even before I got here,” he said, adding that county police had taken over the crash investigation.
Allegheny County Police Lt. Andrew Schurman said
Wednesday that investigators don’t anticipate filing charges against anyone in connection to the crash, such as the people who served them alcohol.
Videos and photos Ms. Herwig posted on the social media app Snapchat gave investigators an unusually clear picture of what happened before the crash, he said.
The Snapchat posts show Ms. Herwig, Ms. Molnar and Ms. Smith visiting bars and gas stations on the South Side, including the Thirteen Eleven tavern at 1311 E. Carson St., where an employee declined to comment Wednesday.
In Ms. Smith’s Mitsubishi SUV, the women are seen drinking liquor, singing and laughing. The women don’t appear to be wearing seat belts. Their last stop apparently was at a friend’s home in Bethel Park, but they don’t go inside and crash less than two miles away.
“Rarely do we have that much insight into the events that unfold just before a fatal accident or collision,” Lt. Schurman said. “But this has provided a lot of insight into exactly what was going on inside the vehicle.”
Ms. Herwig had at least 1,000 followers on Snapchat and had become obsessed with the social media service, friends said. She’d only recently begun drinking heavily and partying after a breakup earlier this year, said a close friend who asked not to be identified. Soon, she was staying out late several nights a week, partying hard and documenting nearly every second on her Snapchat account.
Several people, concerned she was spiraling out of control, warned her to slow down, but she didn’t listen, friends said.
In the Snapchat video, Ms. Camisa entered the vehicle near the end of the recording, and Allegheny County Police have no evidence that the 17-year-old was served in any of the bars that the other three women visited, Lt. Schurman said.
“Beyond that, we don’t know,” he said. “[The teen’s] blood-alcohol will be all-telling.”
Ms. Camisa, a rising senior at Ringgold High School, lived with her 71year-old grandmother, Anne Camisa, and a sister in Finleyville, worked two jobs and had an appointment Thursday to check out a school for nursing, her grandmother said.
“I don’t even have full comprehension that she’s not coming home,” Anne Camisa said Wednesday.
For the one woman who will return home — Brooke Molnar — Tuesday’s crash was the second she has survived in the past three months.
On April 24, Ms. Molnar was driving 22-year-old Avery Dibble’s car in the West End after both had been drinking. The vehicle flipped, and Mr. Dibble was in a coma for 10 days, he said. Mr. Dibble lost all memory of events that happened this year, he said.
Pittsburgh police said the investigation of that crash was ongoing. Ms. Molnar has not been charged.
Her sister, Brianne Molnar, 27, said Brooke was OK after the April crash. On Wednesday, it seemed the news of her friends’ deaths had not sunk in, Brianne said.
“I think she’s still in shock,” Brianne said. “It hasn’t hit her yet.”
Ms. Smith left behind a young daughter.
“She made sure her daughter had everything she needed,” said Kristin Williams, a friend who met Ms. Smith when they were attending a boarding school in the state of Indiana as high schoolers. “She had a big heart, she was always smiling.”
She said she was angry that the other women in the SUV didn’t stop Ms. Smith from driving and angry that a little girl will grow up without her mother.
“I know Paige shouldn’t have been drinking and driving,” she said. “But why would you let her behind the wheel when you know she has a baby girl at home?”
“I’m out of tears,” she said. “There is nothing I can do — she is gone.”