Driver charged with second-degree murder in crash that killed 5 on I-485 in Charlotte

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    CHARLOTTE, NC (WGHP) — The driver accused of causing a multiple-vehicle crash on I-485 that killed five people, including four members of a Mount Holly family, has been arrested.

Dakeia Charles has been charged with five counts of second-degree murder, driving while impaired, and speeding, according to jail records with Mecklenburg County.

Charles was reportedly traveling at 100 mph when he caused a chain of crashes, hitting a box truck that veered into oncoming traffic on the interstate and struck an SUV carrying four family members.

The box truck then hit another car, killing one of the occupants and critically injuring another, according to NC State Highway Patrol.

The four family members killed have been identified as Matthew and Andrea Obester and their daughters, 7-year-old Violet and 12-year-old Elizabeth.

“It is unimaginable. I can’t think of my life without my granddaughters in it everything was planned around them,” the family’s grandmother, Lynn Sherill told FOX 46.

A GoFundMe page has been set up for 14-year-old Jacob Obester, who was not in the car with the rest of his family when they were killed in the crash.

Mark Barlaan, another father, was also killed in the multi-vehicle crash. Troopers said his wife and son had serious, non-life-threatening injuries.

Hours following the deadly wreck, a trooper who went to the crash site to shut down the highway again was critically injured when a driver struck his car, which hit the trooper, police said. Trooper Adolfo Lopez-Alcedo was starting to slow traffic down on the interstate when he was hit.

Troy Douglas Edmiston has been arrested and charged with felony failure to move over/serious injury/death, according to records with Mecklenburg County jail.

“Our Patrol family is hurting with the devastating news of Trooper Lopez’s injury, his family needs our prayers for what is undoubtedly an uphill fight,” Col. Glenn McNeill Jr., commander of the State Highway Patrol, said in a news release Saturday.

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