A Marion, Indiana man is facing charges after he allegedly slammed into a woman and her 1-year-old daughter in Schererville at 117 miles per hour while on cocaine, charges allege.
Stuart W. Roane, 57, was charged Monday with causing serious bodily injury when operating a vehicle with a schedule I or II substance in blood, a Level 5 felony, operating a vehicle while intoxicated endangerment and reckless driving, both class A misdemeanors. A Level 5 felony carries 1-6 years in prison, if convicted.
He has not been apprehended and is ordered held on a $30,000 or $3,000 cash surety bond.
Everyone survived. The woman was extracted from the car, later telling police she couldn’t remember what happened. The baby was ejected in her car seat.
When police arrived, a woman who said she was a doctor was attending to the baby. The girl was later taken to Chicago for precautionary brain scans.
Police responded at 8:48 p.m. Sept. 23 to the intersection of U.S. 30 (Lincoln Highway) and Burr Street in Schererville.
The woman’s car, a blue Ford Escape, was ripped apart with the front half still in the intersection, while the back half was 50 feet into the grass. Roane’s gray Chevrolet Malibu was turned southwest in the U.S. 30 eastbound lanes, about 150 feet from the intersection.
A witness said Roane blew a red light going east on U.S. 30 at a “really high rate of speed.” He hit the woman in the intersection, the charging affidavit alleges. The man estimated Roane was going 75-80 miles per hour.
Another witness said the Malibu went by “in a flash” and the crash sounded like an “explosion.” The mother was “awake” and “crying out for her baby,” but there was “no back seat…anymore”, the witness told investigators.
Other women who were checking the scene heard a baby crying and saw the car seat flipped on its side 20 feet from the car’s rear half on the grass. The child had blood on her face, mouth and ear.
A different witness told police two cars passed him — like they were “street racing” — on the U.S. 30’s left shoulder near a Jaguar dealership, before one got into the crash.
Roane submitted to a toxicology test at the hospital, telling cops he smoked marijuana earlier.
The mother told an investigator she only remembered turning into the intersection. She had stopped by McDonald’s earlier, before heading home.
The woman had a fractured hand, three broken ribs, lacerations and “trauma” to her right leg.
The baby had lacerations on her head. No other injuries were immediately found. She was transferred to a Chicago hospital for further evaluation.
At the crash site, a responding police officer said the baby had “significant” head bleeding, while Roane had lacerations on his arms, the affidavit states.
“I ran the stop light,” Roane said when asked what happened.
Roane’s speech was “unusual,” “erratic,” and “strange.” He later stood up and started “frantically pacing.” He told the officer Roane’s brother was “bothering him all day” and he was “upset.”
Roane declined medical care by paramedics and he was taken to the Lake County Jail. Most of the crash was caught on security footage. The crash appeared to have caused the Malibu to catch on fire, although the view was partially blocked by a gas station on the video, the affidavit states.
A crash reconstruction investigator estimated Roane’s Malibu was traveling at 120 miles per hour, while the airbag data showed 117 miles per hour. The woman’s car was going about 16 per hour.
Roane called Dyer Police on Nov. 10, asking how the investigation was going. Investigators said charges hadn’t been filed yet. He said he didn’t remember the crash and was “sorry” to “everyone involved.” Roane said he had high blood pressure and sickle cell anemia that “caused him to pass out” before the crash.
He said he hadn’t consumed alcohol for a few years and wasn’t on drugs at the time. He was “going through a breakup” around the time of the crash and had been “awake for several days.” He said he would be cooperative in the rest of the investigation.
Neither driver tested positive for alcohol. Toxicology tests showed Roane had cocaine in his system.