Charges filed in wrong-way fatality

Staff reports
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ALAMANCE COUNTY — A wrong-way driver who was involved in a head-on collision that killed a young woman on Interstate 40 now faces murder and other criminal charges.

Rubicel Diaz Hernandez, 40, of Okeechobee, Florida, was taken into custody by the N.C. State Highway Patrol on Tuesday after being discharged from UNC Hospital, where he had been treated for his injuries since the Nov. 20 wreck.

Hernandez has been charged with second-degree murder, driving while impaired and careless and reckless driving. He was taken to the Alamance County Jail in Graham. Bond was set at $800,000 secured.

Hernandez was driving west in the eastbound lanes of I-40 near Trollingwood Road shortly before 10:30 p.m. when his 2019 Jeep SUV collided with a 2014 Honda Civic driven by Keir Vanessa Witherspoon, 24, of Durham. Witherspoon died at the scene of the wreck.

This article originally appeared on Times-News: Charges filed in wrong-way fatality