Mother, 2 kids killed in Orange County crash. Bail for driver set at $3 million.
A mother and her two young children were killed Saturday north of Hillsborough when a driver with a history of driving while impaired struck the back of their sport-utility vehicle, pushing it toward a truck traveling in the opposite direction.
The crash happened around 2:52 p.m. on N.C. 57 between Stroud’s Creek Road and Phelps Road, according to the N.C. Highway Patrol.
Carlos Gerardo Gonzalez-Mejia, 33, of Timberlake, was driving north in a Toyota Tundra at a high rate of speed when he struck the back of a Toyota Rav4, troopers said in a news release.
The SUV veered across the highway’s centerline, where it was T-boned by a Honda Ridgeline truck, a prosecutor said in court Monday.
The SUV’s driver Bertha Alicia Vacio-Moreno, 45, of Snow Camp, and her two children, ages 7 and 14, died at the scene, the release said.
The driver of the Ridgeline, Ronald Trevor Wiley, 74, of Hurdle Mills, was taken to Duke Hospital with life-threatening injuries, it said. A Duke spokesman said Wiley was upgraded to good condition by Monday.
Gonzalez-Mejia, who was not hurt in the crash, tried to flee, but his truck broke down a short distance away, it said.
Witnesses reported seeing Gonzalez-Mejia passing other cars and driving over 100 mph just before the crash, Assistant District Attorney Maren Hardin said in court Monday. He was re-entering his correct lane after passing a car when he hit the SUV, she said.
Gonzalez-Mejia smelled of alcohol when law enforcement arrested him, Hardin said. He had “so many open containers that [law enforcement] did not try to count,” and he admitted drinking and driving, she said.
He was arrested and charged with three counts of second-degree murder, felony habitual driving while impaired, felony serious injury with a motor vehicle, felony hit and run, failure to reduce speed, and careless and reckless driving, troopers said.
Court records show he was previously convicted for driving while impaired in Durham County in 2016, Person County in 2019, Orange County in 2020, and Georgia in 2022. A fifth DWI charge is pending in Montana, where he was arrested last year, prosecutors said.
Orange County District Court Judge Joal Broun set Gonzalez-Mejia’s bond at $3 million Monday. He is being held in the Orange County Detention Center and scheduled to appear in court again on Jan. 16.
The crash shut down the highway for four hours as Orange County Sheriff’s Office deputies re-routed traffic, and Highway Patrol troopers investigated the crash.
This story was originally published December 23, 2024 at 12:56 PM with the headline "Mother, 2 kids killed in Orange County crash. Bail for driver set at $3 million.."
