ISLE OF WIGHT, Va. (WAVY) – The day started with a celebration.
“We were at a birthday party, and Jessica and [her boyfriend] left,” Judith Roberson said.
But Jessica Deziel, Roberson’s daughter, never made it home.
The 32-year-old died in a car crash later that day. Deziel had been in the car with her boyfriend – who is also the father of her daughter – when the car flipped on Joyner’s Bridge Road, near Parsons Drive, on March 27, 2021.
No one witnessed the single car crash.
Deziel’s boyfriend survived. She died while still trapped inside the car.
“I blame myself for letting her get in the vehicle with him,” Roberson said.
Now, Jessica’s family is questioning the state police investigation, but prosecutors say there was no wrongdoing in the case – just an unfortunate set of circumstances.
The driver initially told investigators that “three deer came out of the woods” and he swerved to avoid them, but he lost control of the car.
He was charged with reckless driving.
“I expected him to be charged with manslaughter or vehicular homicide or something,” Roberson said.
When he was found not guilty of the reckless driving charge in May, Judith Roberson left the courtroom in tears.
“The Commonwealth’s Attorney is telling me she’s doing her best, but I’m thinking they aren’t doing their best,” Roberson said.
So, 10 On Your Side sat down with Georgette Phillips, the Isle of Wight Commonwealth’s Attorney, to bring the family’s questions straight to her.
“Mrs. Roberson’s baby is never coming back. It’s heart wrenching, but I can only operate in the confines of what we’re permitted to do,” Phillips said. “We have this question a lot whenever there is a death involved as a result of an auto accident,” she said. “Everyone believes it should be a murder charge or a manslaughter charge, that should be a bare minimum. Unfortunately, it’s not the result that drives the charge. It’s the conduct, the driving conduct.”
While VSP troopers did not have any indication that speed or intoxication contributed to the crash, Deziel’s family believes the driver should have been tested for drugs and alcohol. The man is currently facing unrelated charges of drug use, but Phillips said VSP investigators did not have probable cause to test him at the time of the crash.
“We couldn’t just demand people give their blood or their breath,” Phillips said.
10 On Your Side investigators reviewed the VSP crash report. A state trooper wrote, “I believe if the driver had never been distracted by attempting to light a cigarette, the vehicle could have easily and safely managed the road and continued on.”
But the comment about the cigarette was never mentioned in court – because the Commonwealth’s Attorney says “no one can seem to remember where that statement came from.”
Even if they did have evidence of the driver getting distracted by lighting a cigarette, it might not have mattered, Phillips said. Because no one witnessed the crash, there is no way of knowing if the driver was in fact driving recklessly.
“We all may know something,” Phillips said. “[But] it’s what we can prove and what we can prove with evidence, and what is allowed to be admissible evidence.”
Around the time of this crash, Phillips said there were two other deadly accidents in which the most the Commonwealth could charge was reckless driving.
“One was a 10-month-old child, one was a baby who was actually born because of the accident, and then died immediately. In both of those cases, [there were] very similar facts – unfortunate accidents,” she said.
Despite the family’s frustrations, Phillips believes the VSP conducted a thorough investigation into the deadly crash that killed Deziel.
“They definitely did their job with the limits that we have, but we can always learn from everything we do,” she said.
But a teachable moment for the Commonwealth does nothing to help Roberson’s heartbreak. She believes laws should be changed to protect victims like her daughter.
“I know God has a plan, and I know God is going to take care of this, but right now, and since March 27, I’ve just been so broken,” Roberson said.
