Key West Woman Found Guilty of Killing Woman

A six-person jury convicted a Key West woman September 26 of vehicular homicide and four other offenses for running down and killing a woman with her car and attempting to run down other people three years ago.

April Dawn Thomason, 46, was also convicted of two counts of attempted manslaughter, one count of leaving the scene of an accident involving death and one count of assault. All are felonies. The vehicular homicide charge includes failing to give aid/information.

Thomason ran down dental hygienist Verna Stephanie Collins, 49, of Key West on September 16, 2015, on South Roosevelt Boulevard. Collins died that night at Lower Keys Medical Center.

St. Croix, Virgin Islands, Medical Examiner Dr. Jacqueline Pender, who worked in Miami-Dade County at the time and who performed the autopsy, testified Collins had “substantial hemorrhage in all the organs.” She ruled the death was caused by “blunt force injuries.”

Thomason’s defense claimed she was not guilty due to temporary insanity caused by her withdrawal from Xanax, which the defense claimed caused her to have seizures and temporary loss of memory.

But assistant state attorneys Colleen Dunne and Christy Spottswood presented evidence contradicting that and showing she knew she was behind the wheel and knew what happened when it happened.

In convicting Thomason of the two counts of attempted manslaughter, the jury found that Thomason did “intentionally commit” acts “which would have resulted in the [deaths of Ian Anderson McNab and Jorge Canedo] by driving her automobile, a deadly weapon, on the sidewalk and/or roadway towards and nearly striking” them, which “created a well-founded fear that violence was about to take place” but that was interrupted or prevented.

McNab was walking west with Collins on the South Roosevelt Boulevard sidewalk near the mile marker 1 sign when he saw the Mercedes jump the sidewalk and head toward them. He was able to get out of the way and thought Collins did, as well. But she was struck. Onlookers quickly went to her aide, to no avail.

Canedo told police he was riding his bicycle west on the sidewalk when he saw the Mercedes jump the sidewalk and strike Collins, then head toward him. He changed direction to avoid the car, “but the driver again turned towards him,” Key West Police traffic homicide investigator Kuniko Keohane wrote in a report. Canedo turned quickly to avoid impact as the car left the sidewalk and entered the travel lane heading outbound of the city.

The conviction for assault is for Thomason aiming her car toward Walter Fraddisio Jr. He had gone for a run and was running back to his hotel room on the sidewalk when he saw the Mercedes strike Collins, then come toward him. “He was preparing himself to jump over the seawall and into the water” to avoid the car when the car then aimed at Canedo. Fraddisio told Keohane the car nearly struck him when it went back into the road.

On his bicycle, Canedo chased the Mercedes, which had slowed down due to another car in front of it. The driver of that car had seen in his rear-view mirror the Mercedes strike Collins, then come up behind him in traffic, so he slowed and then stopped, forcing Thomason to stop, as well.

Canedo told Keohane he went to the passenger side of the Mercedes and told Thomason to turn off the car and exit it. She did and sat down on the pavement next to the driver’s side door, where police found her.

Evidence presented by the state included witnesses to the crash, police body-camera video of Thomason just after the crash, her two-hour interview with Keohane and detectives Marcus Del Valle and Tiffini Peters, testimony from Monroe County Detention Center nurses who assessed Thomason and a psychologist who specializes in addiction medicine.

Thomason faces a maximum of 75 years in state prison. Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Luis Garcia, who presided over the trial, is scheduled to sentence her at 10:30 a.m. November 5 at the Freeman Justice Center in Key West.

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