LANCASTER – Tommie Lee Cole, the 24-year-old man accused of driving drunk and causing a collision that killed two Walmart employees on their way home from work, was scheduled to be arraigned in court Thursday. But Cole’s arraignment was postponed, once again, this time to May.
Superior Court Judge Steven Ogden agreed to continue Cole’s arraignment to May 1 to allow the defense time to have an accident reconstructionist study the collision scene, before the preliminary hearing.
Cole is facing eight felony counts, including two counts of murder, for the collision on Feb. 26 that killed Jeffrey Gilstrap and Beau Josh Owen Fluker.
The men were carpooling home from a late night work shift when the vehicle they were riding in collided with Cole’s vehicle at the intersection of 20th Street West and Avenue J in Lancaster.
Cole was determined to be under the influence of alcohol at the time of the crash, according to authorities.
Cole was initially arrested for felony DUI, but was later charged with two counts of murder, two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, two counts of driving under the influence and causing injury, and two counts of driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.08% or greater and causing injury, according to court records.
Cole remains in custody on $2 million bail.
See previous related stories:
Hundreds say goodbye to Beau and Jeff
Man charged with murder in fatal DUI crash, bail set at $2 million
geenadog says
thank you steve
Palmdale_Steve says
Fee Fie Fo Fum I smell the stink of someone with money trying to get out of murdering two innocents by coming up with nonsense like a “accident reconstructionist study” to confuse feeble minded juries.
Guess it worked for OJ, so now all lawyers go for confusing juries with nonsense.
Rebecca says
Yes steve I agree with u steve… They got their high price lawyer n they are tryn to make it seem like beau did sumthing wrong. Beau wasnt drivn under the influence tommy was.. I hope they dont try to slander beaus name. Ive been in the car with beau before. Je once gave me a ride home. He was a cautious driver.
Palmdale_Steve says
I was once on a drunk driving jury where the Defense lawyer was trying to sell the jury on the idea that the accused was mentally defective. We had a few fools who almost bought it, but in the end we hung the guy.
Defense attorneys learned a great lesson from the OJ case on how to confuse the truth and get their client off.