A Florida jury took just over an hour to convict Leigha Mumby of vehicular homicide after a near-100 mph crash into trees killed her boyfriend following a pregnancy revelation and angry fight.
Leigha Mumby, 25, was behind the wheel when the car left Interstate 95 in Flagler County, Florida, in February 2025 and slammed into several trees at deadly speed. Her boyfriend, 22-year-old New York native Daniel Waterman, suffered catastrophic injuries. He later died. On Wednesday, jurors found Mumby guilty of vehicular homicide and reckless driving with serious bodily injury.
New York Post reporting described speeds approaching 100 mph, with accounts ranging up to 110 mph and a crash speed of 94 mph. Sentencing has not yet been set.
Prosecutors told the jury the crash was no accident. Hours earlier, Mumby had learned she was pregnant. An argument followed over the pregnancy and over Waterman texting another woman. That fight, they argued, shaped what happened next on the highway.
Waterman did not die at the scene. The crash left him in a coma and paralyzed from a broken neck. He woke long enough to tell authorities Mumby had crashed on purpose. He died of pneumonia in October 2025.
Mumby was badly hurt too. She recovered. She gave birth. Then she faced a jury that needed little time to decide the case.
Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark used closing arguments to fix the jury’s attention on Mumby’s state of mind that day. Flagler Live reported her account of a phone call Mumby placed to a friend.
"She’s so furious she calls her best friend to vent about it, screaming about Daniel texting with another woman,"
Clark continued:
"And when her best friend doesn’t react the way she likes, she abruptly hangs up. That was Leigha Mumby’s demeanor at the time of the crash."
That sequence, pregnancy news, jealousy over texts, a screaming call, then a high-speed departure from I-95 into trees, formed the core of the state’s case.
Defense attorney Reid Hart rejected the idea that Mumby set out to kill anyone, including herself and her unborn child. He told jurors there was no proof of a suicide mission and pointed to what he called her efforts to avoid the crash once trouble started.
"There’s absolutely zero evidence or reasons to believe that she was in a place where she was going to put all of their lives, including hers and that of her own unborn child, at risk of serious violent harm or death,"
Hart added:
"Her efforts to avoid the crash, as soon as that input gets made, illustrate that she never intended for that to happen in the first place."
The jury did not buy it. Deliberations lasted just over an hour. Conviction followed on both counts.
Coverage of the Mumby verdict drew a direct line to another case. In 2022, then-17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla crashed at 100 mph into a brick warehouse in Strongsville, Ohio. The wreck killed her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, 20, and 19-year-old Davion Flanagan. Shirilla was convicted in 2023 and sentenced to 15 years to life. An Ohio judge later shut down her bid to reopen the case, ending her state appeals. The judge had branded her “literal hell on wheels.”
Different states. Different victims. Same basic picture: a young driver, extreme speed, a solid object, and lives ended in seconds. In Florida, the solid objects were trees off I-95. In Ohio, it was a warehouse wall. In both cases, courts refused to treat the wrecks as mere bad luck.
The verified timeline is stark. February 2025: pregnancy news, argument, high-speed crash in Flagler County. Waterman is left paralyzed and briefly conscious enough to accuse Mumby of crashing on purpose. Mumby survives, recovers, and gives birth. October 2025: Waterman dies of pneumonia. Wednesday: a Flagler County jury convicts after little more than an hour. Sentencing remains ahead.
No full trial transcript or crash-data readout appears in the available reporting. The public record that does exist includes the speeds, the roadway departure, Waterman’s statement to authorities, the best-friend call described by the prosecutor, the defense denial of intent, and a swift guilty verdict on vehicular homicide and reckless driving with serious bodily injury.
Vehicular homicide cases turn on how a driver handled a car when other people paid the price. Here the car left a major interstate and hit trees at nearly highway racing speeds. A young man from New York never walked again and did not live to see another year. A jury heard the fight, the phone call, the victim’s accusation, and the defense claim of no intent, then moved quickly.
Accountability still has a place when rage, speed, and a steering wheel meet. Daniel Waterman is gone. The court has named who put him there. Sentencing will show what that verdict is worth.
