KS mom gets prison for causing 8-car crash with child in car
A Wichita mother who used meth and drove over 100 mph with her 5-yearold daughter — triggering a multi-car crash that she later admitted she caused because she wanted to kill herself — was sentenced Thursday to more than 18 years in prison.
Paloma Bella Adame, 28, pleaded guilty on March 1 to attempted first-degree murder and five counts of aggravated battery in connection with the Oct. 23, 2022, wreck near Andover that sent seven people to the hospital with injuries ranging from bruises and cuts to lost consciousness and a traumatic brain injury.
Sedgwick County District Judge Seth Rundle handed down the 219month prison sentence on Thursday morning and also ordered Adame to pay more than $3,000 in various court and attorneys fees, said Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.
Adame remains in the Sedgwick County Jail, where she has been incarcerated since her Jan. 12, 2023, arrest. She will soon be transferred to the Kansas Department of Corrections to serve out her prison sentence. She will be supervised for an additional three years after she’s released, Dillon said.
The Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office has said Adame’s 5-year-old “was not properly restrained” when Adame drove a Kia Sportage 116 mph nearly full throttle in the moments before she collided with vehicles stopped at a red light at U.S. 54 and 143rd Street East. She was traveling 92 mph at the point of impact and had used methamphetamine before the crash, a probable cause affidavit released by the court says.
It happened shortly before 4 p.m.
Witnesses described seeing the Kia flipping and twisting in the air before it landed atop a Florida family’s car — crushing the roof above a baby — and skidded to a stop. Witnesses also told law enforcement that Adame had been speeding, passing on the shoulder and whipping about in traffic without regard for other motorists, the affidavit says.
Her father even called 911 several minutes before the crash to warn that she might be intoxicated, suicidal and harm others after he saw her driving in the wrong lanes of traffic, driving in reverse and acting erratically on another road, the affidavit says. Adame’s mother told law enforcement her daughter “seemed paranoid,” had been “behaving strangely” and said that she “could not handle life anymore” in the days leading up to the wreck, according to the affidavit.
Witnesses pulled Adame’s daughter from the Kia after finding her “stuck face-first” between the dashboard and the windshield, suffering from a broken leg and bruising on her hip and head. After Adame was freed from the wreckage, she pulled the girl out of the arms of a witness who had been comforting her and began swinging her at bystanders “as if she was trying (to) fend them off,” the affidavit says.
She exhibited erratic behavior at the crash site, including using her daughter “as a weapon” against others, screaming incomprehensibly, trying to run away, fighting with responders and kicking at deputies who handcuffed her, the affidavit says.
She also made concerning comments to hospital workers, including that the crash was not an accident and that she had been trying to kill herself, according to the affidavit.