A Naperville woman has been charged with reckless homicide after a crash in Aurora on May 1 left a motorcycle passenger dead, police announced on Friday.
An investigation of the crash by the Aurora Police Department’s Traffic Division indicated that Adrienne Wheeler, 37, made an unsafe U-turn in front of a motorcycle near the intersection of Butterfield Road and Savannah Drive in Aurora, according to an Aurora Police Department news release.
Wheeler has been charged with reckless homicide, aggravated reckless driving, failure to signal when required, improper lane usage and improper U-turn on a roadway in connection with the crash, according to the release.
Wheeler was taken into custody on Oct. 2 and released the next day after a pretrial hearing, officials said in the release.
The police investigation of the crash indicated that on May 1 at around 5 p.m., Wheeler was driving a 2021 Chevrolet Suburban to make a food delivery, the release stated. She was intending to turn left out of a strip mall to head west on Butterfield Road, but was delayed by a vehicle in front of her, according to the release.
Wheeler instead switched lanes to head east on Butterfield Road, then within a few seconds, she attempted a U-turn from the curbside lane to head west on Butterfield, according to the release.
Officials said that, when Wheeler made the U-turn, she turned into the path of a 1990 Harley Davidson motorcycle, which was traveling in the eastbound median lane. The motorcycle hit Wheeler’s vehicle on the driver’s side, which caused motorcycle passenger Nicole Ross, 29, of Cortland, to be ejected from the motorcycle, officials said.
Ross was then struck by a third vehicle traveling west on Butterfield Road, officials said.
Ross was transported to a local hospital by Aurora Fire Department paramedics, where she died the next day, according to a police press release in May.
The driver of the motorcycle was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries following the crash, the release from May said.
