INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Lakeisha Holloway: Fatal Las Vegas Strip Crash Driver Faces 71 Charges, Up To 1,000 Years In Prison

By Rahul Srinivas
Published on: 12:00 PST, Jan 20, 2016

Lakeisha Holloway, the 24-year-old Oregon woman who was involved in the fatal Las Vegas Strip crash last month, might end up facing a 1000-year prison sentence. According to the NY Daily News, on Wednesday, exactly a month after the fatal crash, Lakeisha Holloway was charged with 71 counts of various charges, including attempted murder and battery with a deadly weapon. She was also separately charged with murder for causing the death of an Arizona woman, the only fatality in the incident which was allegedly a deliberate act by Holloway.

Lakeisha’s 3-year-old daughter was in the backseat of her car on the day of the incident, thereby forcing authorities to book her for child abuse and neglect for causing endangerment to the child’s life. She was also initially charged for failure to stop at an accident scene, a charge which was subsequently dropped. Another count of child abuse was also filed against her as one of the victims of the crash included an 11-year-old boy. Holloway’s daughter has since been placed with child services and was unharmed in the incident

Following the filing of charges against Lakeisha, Clark County District Attorney Steven Wolfson issued a statement which read, “These additional charges reflect the totality of the lives impacted by the defendant’s actions.”

According to reports, Lakeisha Holloway was living in her car with her daughter for over a week before the fatal crash happened. A month since the incident, it remains unclear as to why Lakeisha decided to do what she did.

Meanwhile, investigators have termed Lakeisha’s actions “deliberate and pre-meditated”. According to Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo, her conviction would “ensure the protection of our community from the defendant for a very long time.”

According to eyewitness reports, Lakeisha repeatedly drove her car, an Oldsmobile sedan, into the crowd on the sidewalk. Her actions were also termed “deliberate” by eyewitnesses and police officials alike. After causing the crash, Holloway fled from the scene and reached a hotel one mile away from the scene where she parked her car and reportedly told a worker there to call 911. The police eventually managed to arrest her from the same place a few minutes later. Since her arrest, Lakeisha Holloway has been held without bail at a Las Vegas jail.

If she is convicted for each of the charges she is facing, Lakeisha Holloway faces the possibility of spending 1,000 years in jail, which essentially translates to life imprisonment. On Wednesday, Lakeisha was presented in court and she looked emotionless and disillusioned during the time, eyewitnesses say. She will be back in court on February 4, as the trial resumes.

Following her arrest, Lakeisha Holloway was kept in a medically restrained jail unit, a special unit where inmates requiring high supervision are held. Inmates requiring continuous surveillance and or those on suicide watch are kept in units like these. Holloway was eventually shifted to a general enclosure on Wednesday, her lawyer Joseph Abood confirmed.

“She’s doing somewhat better, she’s still in a very difficult state of mind,” he said.

Life has come a full circle for Lakeisha who was just a few years ago lauded for turning her life around. She was, a few years ago, seen in a video where she talked about how she had managed to turn her life around after being homeless. The video is embedded below. Lakeisha starts speaking at the 1:57 mark.

She was even awarded with a C.A.R.E. Role Model Award in 2012 by Portland OIC, a nonprofit organization.

“She was such a great kid while she was a part of our program,” a POIC spokesperson said.

[Photo by Chase Stevens/AP Images]

Share this article: Lakeisha Holloway: Fatal Las Vegas Strip Crash Driver Faces 71 Charges, Up To 1,000 Years In Prison
las vegas Crime
More from Inquisitr