Driver charged with DUI in crash that killed 4 siblings; mom says she's 'incomplete'

USA TODAY

GREENVILLE, S.C. — The driver of a van that crashed Friday in rural Greenville County, killing four young children from one family, was charged Monday with felony driving under the influence, the South Carolina Highway Patrol said.

Initially, Arnez Yaron Jamison Sr., 27, was charged with three counts of felony DUI resulting in death and one count of DUI resulting in great bodily injury, but the last charge will be upgraded to another DUI resulting in death after the fourth child died Sunday, troopers said. Jamison's last listed address in other public records is in Jersey City, New Jersey.

He also is charged with driving with a suspended license and child endangerment, according to the Highway Patrol and jail records.

Three children — Arnez Yaron Jamison Jr., 4; Robbiana Evans, 6; and Jamire Halley, 8 — died at the scene of the crash around 12:30 a.m. ET Friday on South Carolina 253, near rural Taylors, the county Coroner's Office said. Ar'mani Jamison, 2, died Sunday at Greenville Memorial Hospital.

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Arnez Jamison Sr. was not wearing a seat belt and also was hospitalized with injuries including a broken leg after the 2004 Pontiac van ran off the road and struck several trees, Trooper Joe Hovis said.

The siblings all were children of Jackie Brown of Travelers Rest, South Carolina, a about 10 miles north of Greenville. Robbiana was in kindergarten, and Jamire was in third grade, according to Greenville County Schools.

Arnez Jamison
Arnez Jamison

A co-worker of Brown said the children were everything to their mother.

"She’s not taking it well," said Crystal Griffith, who has organized a GoFundMe fund-raiser for the funeral and other expenses that raised almost $42,000 by Monday night. "These children were this lady's life."

Brown had moved to South Carolina three years earlier from Jersey City and was looking forward this year to having a tree with presents in their modest mobile home after living for a time in her car.

She was at home cleaning Thursday when Jamison Sr. took the children with him to visit another one of his children in town. It was late — actually early Friday morning — when he drove them back toward home along country roads in rural Taylors.

She began to worry when they didn't arrive. She couldn’t reach her partner.

Each call and text grew more frantic. Eventually, Brown ordered a ride from Lyft to seek her family, but when the driver arrived, he told her about a bad car accident just a short drive up winding South Carolina 253 near Mountain Creek Road.

Then the hospital called. They said she needed to rush. Ar’mani was there.

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“I just thought it would be bumps and bruises,” Brown said Monday.

When she arrived, Ar’mani was on life support. The 2-year-old girl would be taken off the machines and pronounced dead Sunday; the other three children died at the scene of the wreck.

Three of Jacqueline Brown's children were killed Dec. 7, 2018, and a fourth was severely injured in a vehicle crash in rural Greenville County. The fourth died two days later.
Three of Jacqueline Brown's children were killed Dec. 7, 2018, and a fourth was severely injured in a vehicle crash in rural Greenville County. The fourth died two days later.

Brown said it still felt unreal, an ironic nightmare that struck just as her family was beginning to get its footing.

They had started with nothing, but they had each other. Then they had everything, Brown said.

Now, she said she truly has nothing.

“I’m just incomplete now without them,” she said. “They were my everything — my heart, my blood, my breath, my motivation. They helped me get through everything I needed to get through.”

Jamison Sr. is also broken, and "taking it just as hard as I am." She said she can't yet focus on the charges he faces.

He was charged about a dozen times in the past five years for traffic-related offenses, including hit-and-run with property damage, according to records from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. In 2015 he was charged with a felony for domestic violence, according to arrest records.

“I’ve just got to move forward, be strong,” said Brown, who hasn't returned home to her trailer but is staying with her mother in an apartment nearby. “I’ve been through a lot. It’s going to take a lifetime to heal, but I’m going to make it.

"I still have to do it for them," she said. "I’ve never been a quitter, so I’m not going to quit now.”

Contributing: Daniel J. Gross and Anna Lee, Greenville (S.C.) News. Follow Nathaniel Cary and Haley Walters on Twitter: @nathanielcary and @_haleywalters

This article originally appeared on The Greenville News: Driver charged with DUI in crash that killed 4 siblings; mom says she's 'incomplete'