Man faces murder charge for death of woman
Police: Woods fled arrest after killing Jozefiak
A Roseville man was bound over to Macomb County Circuit Court on Thursday for seconddegree murder on accusations he killed a Harrison Township woman by crashing a stolen pickup truck into her vehicle while fleeing police in Mount Clemens.
Vertese Woods, 42, will face charges of fleeing and eluding police, receiving and concealing a stolen motor vehicle, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, and leaving the scene of a crash, following a preliminary examination in 41B District Court in Clinton Township.
Linda Marks Jozefiak, 58, was killed when Woods crashed a speeding 2014 Dodge Ram pickup truck into the driver’s side of the Ford Fusion driven by Jozefiak last December on Cass Avenue at North Rose, according to police.
The Ram had been reported stolen from Fraser.
Woods was about to be arrested in the stolen truck parked on Main Street at New Street across from the county courthouse in downtown Mount Clemens at about 1 p.m. Dec. 20, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Officers from the Macomb County Auto Theft Squad boxed in his vehicle from behind with three undercover police
vehicles. Woods went in reverse and rammed a police vehicle with the truck, drove forward over a sidewalk, steered the truck at another police vehicle and fled the scene, police said.
Four people who were sitting on a bench along the sidewalk who police say were nearly struck by the truck did not respond to subpoenas to testify Thursday.
Macomb Sheriff’s Deputy Gerald Hannah of the Auto Theft Squad testified Thursday he was driving his vehicle on Main and approaching the parked Dodge Ram occupied by Woods when the truck “was jumping the parking block and began to southbound on the sidewalk.”
“It was coming straight, directly at me and I had to veer to the right to avoid a head-on collision,” Hannah said.
Hannah, driving his vehicle, began to follow the truck as it traveled out of the downtown area.
“The driver of the truck, he had total disregard for anyone’s safety, very excessive speed,” he said. “The driver of the vehicle totally disregarded the stop sign at northbound Gratiot.”
Woods drove the truck to Hubbard Street and then to North Rose, where it turned south toward Cass.
As it neared the intersection, it picked up speed, going from 57 mph five seconds before the crash to 69 mph 0.1 seconds before striking the Fusion, according to Joe Bosek, a sheriff’s deputy and crash expert who examined the Ram’s “black box.” The Ram’s accelerator was pressed down 98%, and Woods began to brake at 0.4 seconds before impact, he said. The Fusion was traveling on Cass at 27 mph five seconds before the crash and 36 mph at impact, Bosek said.
The speed limit on North Rose is 25 mph and on Cass is 35 mph.
After the crash, Woods fled on foot and tried to enter the Prevail Academy school on Cass but was unable to do so, said Assistant Macomb Prosecutor Jeffrey Hall. Woods then got on a bicycle at the school and began to ride from the area.
Officer John Hreno of the Clinton Township Police Department, also an auto squad member, was approaching the area on Cass when he saw Woods, a heavy-set man, pedaling the youth bicycle with one shoe off and no jacket.
Hreno said Woods followed his commands by riding the bicycle up a driveway, setting the bike against a house and surrendering.
A handful of supporters of Jozefiak attended the Thursday’s proceeding. A woman who said she was a family member said they are too distraught about the incident to comment.
Woods, who did not have a driver’s license, has multiple prior convictions for home invasion, and was on probation for home invasions in Roseville and Warren.
He remains held in lieu of a $1 million bond and faces a Dec. 1 arraignment on 11 charges and probation violation hearings in front of circuit Judge Matthew Sabaugh.