{"id":482861,"date":"2026-10-02T15:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T15:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/482861\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T15:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T15:28:11","slug":"jury-handed-case-of-nurse-charged-with-crash-that-killed-6-in-la-daily-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/482861\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury handed case of nurse charged with crash that killed 6 in LA \u2013 Daily News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A prosecutor argued Thursday, Oct. 1 that a traveling nurse drove through a red light at 130 mph and caused a fiery crash that killed six people, including an unborn baby, in an \u201centirely preventable\u201d tragedy, while the woman\u2019s attorney countered that his client suffered a seizure<\/a> that left her unable to stop the speeding Mercedes-Benz.<\/p>\n

The downtown Los Angeles jury is set to begin deliberations Friday morning in the trial of Nicole Linton<\/a>, 41, who is charged with six counts of second-degree murder in the Aug. 4, 2022, crash at the intersection of La Brea and Slauson avenues.<\/p>\n

Those killed included 23-year-old Asherey Ryan of Los Angeles, who relatives said was 8 1\/2 months pregnant, along with her unborn child, who was to be named Armani Lester, her 11-month-old son Alonzo Quintero and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Reynold Lester of Los Angeles, who were in a Jaguar that was split \u201cin half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nathesia Lewis, 43, and her friend, 38-year-old Lynette Noble, who were in a Nissan, were also killed.<\/p>\n

Authorities said nine other people, including Linton, were injured, with a total of nine vehicles involved in the collision and its aftermath.<\/p>\n

At the start of her closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Antonella Nistorescu played video of the deadly crash and the \u201cchaos\u201d that resulted and told jurors, \u201cWhat you know now \u2026 is this was an entirely preventable act.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 She chose to do this. She did it knowingly and, most importantly, she was conscious,\u201d the prosecutor said. \u201cShe was conscious that entire time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deputy district attorney said Linton left her job as a traveling nurse at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Center mid-shift that afternoon with intentions of quitting the assignment and steered her vehicle \u201cwith precision\u201d as her speed increased as she drove downhill toward the intersection.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know she\u2019s not unconscious,\u201d Nistorescu said, telling jurors that the evidence is \u201cinconsistent with her having a seizure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prosecutor noted that Linton had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, failed to take her medication and had been involved in earlier incidents of violent or aggressive conduct, including a December 2016 run-in during which she allegedly hit a woman, drove away at about 100 mph and ran through red lights.<\/p>\n

The deputy district attorney argued that Linton had \u201cno history in any of her medical records of any seizures.\u201d She said the defendant engaged in six \u201cbehavioral episodes\u201d during testing after the crash to try to trigger seizures, saying that the woman was \u201cacting like she\u2019s having a seizure when she\u2019s not having a seizure\u201d and that Linton had written earlier about not wanting to take accountability for her actions.<\/p>\n

Linton\u2019s attorney, Jovan Blacknell, told jurors in his closing argument that the crash was \u201ccatastrophic\u201d and that \u201cthe loss of life was horrendous,\u201d citing \u201cthe emotion of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the issue that is in dispute is \u201cwhat was going on in Nicole\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defense lawyer maintained that she was \u201cin no way angry or rageful\u201d and had been driving \u201cperfectly normal\u201d after leaving work that day.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 She did not know that she was going to have a seizure,\u201d Blacknell said. \u201cSometimes a medical emergency occurs while someone\u2019s driving. That\u2019s not murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Linton\u2019s attorney told jurors that an image on video showing her arm outside her car window just before the collision was \u201cconsistent with a rigid body part\u201d \u2014 not with a phone in her hand \u2014 as the result of a seizure..<\/p>\n

He contended that there was only \u201cminimal\u201d movement of the steering wheel in the seconds leading up to the crash, saying it would be remarkable if Linton could have driven at that speed with only one hand on the steering wheel.<\/p>\n

Blacknell acknowledged that a \u201ctragic thing\u201d occurred, but said \u201cNicole Linton didn\u2019t commit the crime of murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that the only charge jurors can consider is murder.<\/p>\n

In the prosecution\u2019s rebuttal argument, Deputy District Attorney Brittany Vannoy told the jury that Linton has \u201cbeen on a collision course to disaster\u201d in which she ignored her provocations and triggers, knew what was happening to her and \u201cchose to get behind the wheel of a car and take her anger out\u201d and \u201cchanneled that fury into her driving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vannoy urged the jury to hold the defendant accountable for the consequences of her actions.<\/p>\n

Linton opted not to testify in her own defense during the trial, which included emotional testimony from people who witnessed the crash or its fiery aftermath.<\/p>\n

Veronica Esquivel testified that she heard an \u201ceerie sound\u201d and knew something bad had happened, saying that \u201cit surely sounded like people were dying.\u201d<\/p>\n

She described seeing a baby flying through the air before landing on the ground at the gas station with pieces of his clothing missing, adding that she screamed for someone to help her with the baby before she ran from the scene.<\/p>\n

Tonya Boyd testified that she followed two people, including one of the employees, with the injured baby into the convenience store, and that she tried to perform CPR on the baby, but heard \u201clike a gurgling sound\u201d and felt like the baby \u201cwas not alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 The baby was not breathing,\u201d the witness said, growing emotional as she was asked to look at a photo of the baby on the convenience store\u2019s counter.<\/p>\n

Through a Spanish interpreter, Edwin Servellon-Salazar said that he was at a gas station filling his work pickup truck when he heard the explosion and that he saw \u201cthe cars up in flames and the people who were already dead on the ground.\u201d He said he began recording video on his cell phone of the scene.<\/p>\n

California Highway Patrol investigator Hector Castaneda noted that 25 areas of impact were documented, including the victims being thrown from the Jaguar after it was struck and split in half.<\/p>\n

A now-retired CHP employee who examined Linton\u2019s vehicle after the crash said he didn\u2019t find any pre-existing conditions to the vehicle that would have contributed to the crash. He noted that the vehicle was in \u201cpretty bad shape\u201d after the collision and sustained a lot of thermal damage from the fire that ensued.<\/p>\n

A doctor who spoke with Linton a day after the crash said the woman initially didn\u2019t seem to have much of a recollection what had happened, but then began to open up and tell her that her co-workers made her feel stupid and that she hated her job and had gotten into her car and left her job with the intention of quitting without telling anyone at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

She said Linton told her that she remembered waking up and feeling angry about people touching her asking if she was OK after the crash, and then feeling upset about seeing her car in flames because she had paid a lot of money for it.<\/p>\n

Deputy Medical Examiner Vadims Poukens testified that the six victims all died from traumatic injuries, saying three suffered thermal injuries that occurred after they had already died.<\/p>\n

During the defense\u2019s portion of the case, jurors heard from a neurologist who testified that he believed Linton had \u201clikely suffered a seizure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under cross-examination, Dr. David Millett acknowledged that he was troubled early on about how she managed to navigate the road, but said he wasn\u2019t aware then of the photo showing Linton with her arm out the driver\u2019s side window that he said seemed consistent with a type of seizure that causes unconsciousness.<\/p>\n

Firefighter\/paramedic Richard Jimenez testified that he concluded that Linton was initially in an altered mental state after the crash and noticed that she repeatedly asked the same questions. But he said he couldn\u2019t diagnose whether she had a seizure that day.<\/p>\n

Kimberly Linton told jurors that she spoke numerous times with her younger sister in the days and hours leading up to the crash, testifying that the things her sister had been discussing were unusual for her.<\/p>\n

The woman said her sister had told her that her co-workers were acting weird and that she couldn\u2019t really explain what she meant.<\/p>\n

In one call on WhatsApp the day of the crash, she said Linton popped into the video without any clothes on and then with a towel wrapped around herself without any explanation.<\/p>\n

Kimberly Linton said her sister subsequently told her shortly before the crash to \u201cget with the program\u201d and \u201cmeet me at the altar,\u201d adding that she had no knowledge of her sister planning to get married or even being in a relationship at the time.<\/p>\n

During the first day of testimony in the trial, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter sent jurors out of the courtroom after Linton gasped loudly when a gas station surveillance video was shown depicting the fireball that ensued after the crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cMs. Linton, you\u2019re going to have to control yourself,\u201d the judge said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want this based on emotion \u2026 Take a minute and compose yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Linton was initially charged with six counts of murder and five counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, but the less serious charges were dismissed after the prosecution announced at a hearing shortly before the trial began that it was not going to proceed with those counts, according to court records.<\/p>\n

She was arrested by the California Highway Patrol on the day of the crash and remains behind bars without bail, jail records show.<\/p>\n

On a website supporting Linton, one of her sisters, Camille, wrote that the crash \u201cdid not happen on purpose, but was a tragic accident.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 She is someone who we love dearly and right now, so many people see her as this monster and a murderer, when she is one of the most compassionate and caring people that we know,\u201d the statement continued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prosecutor argued Thursday, Oct. 1 that a traveling nurse drove through a red light at 130 mph…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7,138,48,52,51,47,137,50,49,100,136],"class_list":["post-482861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-california","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}