A Severn man charged with driving a car that struck and killed two teenagers in June, then speeding away without stopping, turned himself in to police Tuesday and was ordered held without bail.
Reuben Dunn, 28, was charged in an indictment with two counts of automobile manslaughter, two counts of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and driving under the influence, according to the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office.
Prosecutors also said a grand jury had indicted Dunn's companion, Kendra Myles, 26, as an accessory after the fact. Myles was charged Sept. 14 and released pending trial. Both live in the 8200 block of Stewarton Court in Severn.
The arrests bring some closure to the families of Courtney Angeles, 16, and Emerald Smith, 17, who died nine minutes apart at Maryland Shock Trauma Center shortly after the 11:40 p.m. accident on June 13. Police said the victims were crossing Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at Pratt Street, in a crosswalk, when a car ran a red light and ran them over.
Courtney and Emerald had lived around the corner from each other in Southwest Baltimore and had been best friends since kindergarten.
"Ninety-nine days," said Courtney's mother, Pamela Mendell-Morales, counting the time between the accident and the arrest of the suspected driver. "I haven't had a real night's sleep in three months."
Mendell-Morales, wearing a white T-shirt with Courtney's picture on the front, said she felt no sympathy for the suspects.
"I want someone to pay," she said Tuesday at her rowhouse on James Street. "I don't feel sorry for them. My daughter was hit and left in the streets."
Less than a half-hour after the crash, an officer with the Maryland Transportation Authority police spotted a suspicious red Lincoln on New Ridge Road, near a rental facility at BWI Airport. The police report says that two of the vehicle's headlights were out, the front end "was severely damaged" and the windshield had "two very large impact craters on it."
The officer pulled the car over on Stony Run Road and wrote in his report that Myles was driving. The officer "asked Ms. Myles if she was recently involved in an accident, and she stated yes but she was unsure of what she hit," the police report says.
Myles told the officer, according to the report, that the accident had occurred "somewhere around MLK Boulevard and 395 in Baltimore City." The officer then questioned the front-seat passenger, identified as Dunn, who according to the report said he had been asleep.
The officer confirmed there had been an accident in that area and turned the suspects over to city police. Prosecutors said they believe Myles and Dunn switched seats after the accident. But Dunn's lawyer, James Rhodes, said his client denies being at the wheel when the teens were struck.
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"Police are going to have a big problem," Rhodes said. He said Dunn works for a private sanitation company, and that he and Myles had been dating and have two children together.
"Their evidence is based only on the young lady saying my client was driving," Rhodes said. "They don't have a single piece of evidence to support that beyond that young lady's statement. My client was not driving."
Rhodes said Dunn also denies a statement made by a prosecutor during Tuesday's bail hearing that his client had been drinking all day. He said police never administered a Breathalyzer test.
Myles' attorney, Keith H. Roberts, declined to comment on specifics of the case. "Our hearts definitely go out to the victims of this tragic incident," he said. "Regarding the particulars, we are very confident that the Baltimore Police Department is going to conduct a thorough investigation and all the facts will come out."
In 2009, Myles was fined $160 for speeding 74 mph in a 55 mph zone on Route 100 in Howard County, according to court records. In March, she was found guilty of driving on a suspended license in Anne Arundel County and fined $33, according to court records.
Dunn was charged with speeding in August, after the fatal accident, after a police officer pulled him over on Route 198 near the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Court records allege he was going 65 mph in a 45 mph zone, and that he was driving on a suspended registration. That case is pending.