A jury acquitted a Highland woman Wednesday for striking and killing a 21-year-old pedestrian.
Lisa Damico, 52, was charged with reckless homicide and four misdemeanors. She faced up to six years in prison in Tyler Scheidt’s Aug. 18, 2021 death.
The jury deliberated for about four hours.
“Ms. Damico has expressed personally her sympathies to the Scheidt family,” her lawyer Russell Brown said after the verdict.
“This was an accident,” he said. “The evidence was clear she had some form of a medical issue.”
Within a year, Damico, who has epilepsy, was accused of killing two people, including Scheidt, in separate crashes.
Authorities also charged her with reckless homicide after running a red light just before 9 a.m. Jan. 30, 2022 near the Highland Meijer, killing Socorro Keresztes, 70, of Munster. A crash investigator estimated Damico was driving at 93 mph, according to court records. That trial is scheduled for Dec. 11.
Just before Scheidt’s death, Damico gunned her SUV at 85 mph on Ridge Road east across Indianapolis Boulevard to beat a yellow light, Deputy Prosecutor Keith Anderson said in closing arguments Wednesday.
“We’ve heard the evidence,” he said.
Crash data pulled from her Nissan Rogue showed she had picked up speed and jerked her steering wheel slightly to the right just before the crash. She was not passed out, Anderson argued.
When asked later, Damico refused to let police look at the vehicle.
“She knew she’d be in trouble once that data was recovered,” the prosecutor said. “She thought she could talk her way out of it.”
Court records allege Damico crossed the centerline and median on Aug. 18, 2021 and hit the first two cars in the turn lane. Her car then jackknifed, or spun east, striking pedestrian Tyler Scheidt, 21, of Highland on her passenger side, who was knocked several feet toward the opposite sidewalk. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
Her car came to a stop 150 feet east of the intersection near a retaining wall, charges state.
She first told police she remembered the entire crash, according to court records. She later claimed she passed out.
She didn’t remember anything, but remembered to go back to the police station to give a statement, Anderson said.
Her story changed over time, he said, as she grew afraid she could lose her driver’s license and the gravity of what happened was apparent.
“People who pass out don’t make up some elaborate story,” he said. “She knows she was speeding.”
Anderson also on Tuesday got Damico to admit on the stand that she didn’t want to tell law enforcement about her epilepsy because she knew she could lose her license. When asked why she got defensive when an officer asked her about it, she said, “He’s not a doctor.”
Lawyers agreed Damico caused the crash, but were split on the underlying cause.
Anderson argued Wednesday it didn’t “matter” whether there was a possibility she had a seizure. Intentionally driving with a debilitating medical condition was “inherently reckless”.
Brown objected, saying that was not why she was on trial.
The question was did Damico act “recklessly” on the road and was she aware of her conduct, he later told jurors.
Her SUV didn’t turn or break. No one in their “right mind” would have crossed the intersection at 85 mph and not “do something.” He believed she had some sort of “medical episode.”
If prosecutors wanted, they could have charged her with driving around with an “uncontrolled” medical condition like epilepsy, he said. Prosecutors were asking the jury to “bail” them out.
“They didn’t charge it, because they can’t prove it,” Brown said.
Damico’s doctor had cleared her to drive in July 2021, the month before the crash, the lawyer said. Her last seizure was in 2017, Brown said.
Anderson retorted the jury should listen to Damico’s own words, after police asked if they could get the crash data.
“No, no, I knew what I was doing,” she replied in a taped interview.
Court records show Scheidt’s parents ended a civil suit against Damico in August 2022.
mcolias@post-trib.com
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
