VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — With one drunk driving case, several lives may never be the same.
On the morning of April 7, 10 On Your Side was on the scene after a car plowed into a home near Kempsville Greens Golf Course. The home Kelly Carr rented was destroyed, and a man was convicted Monday of DWI in connection to the incident.
“To try to put it into words, you know, financially, mentally, physically — just flipped upside down over somebody making, or two people, doing something really, really just stupid,” Carr said.
Details of what happened before the crash were shared by prosecutors Monday during a hearing in Virginia Beach Traffic Court.
According to prosecutors, before the crash, police were watching a suspicious car on nearby Baxter Road. Minutes later, families in the 4700 block of Kempsville Greens Parkway say they were awakened by what they thought was the sound of a bomb exploding. They would later learn it was the sound of a BMW that had plowed into Carr’s home.
An immigrant from Russia, Kirill Emer, was caught on surveillance video running from the scene, but he reportedly returned to remove the license plates from the car that landed where Carr often sleeps. That night in April, she was elsewhere.
“I would have been asleep on the couch, the one the car was on top of,” Carr said outside the Virginia Beach court building. “And that was probably the hardest thing for me to see.”
In a hearing, where Emer required the use of a translator, witnesses including the Pinkneys, who live next door to Carr’s former home, told a judge their home and lives were also shattered that morning.
“It’s just been hard. … it takes a toll on you mentally because there’s no resolve. It’s really has no resolve at this point,” said Renee Pinkney
Judge Jonathan Stone convicted Emer of DWI and failure to obey a highway marker. The judge found Emer not guilty of two lesser charges. Emer faces fines, $4,400 in restitution to the Carr family and, beginning later this month, he must serve 30 days in jail. He must also attend classes with the Virginia Alcohol Safety Program.
