By Ana Ruiz Brictson | News Editor, Matt Kyle | Assistant News Editor, Danika Young | Broadcast Reporter
The driver who was arrested for intoxication manslaughter early on Sept. 17 admitted to a Waco police officer he had been drinking, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The Lariat.
That court document also says Frisco sophomore Norman Nyamandi was driving at a high rate of speed on the 3100 block of S. Third Street when he lost control of his vehicle; the vehicle then left the roadway and flipped multiple times, ejecting the passenger.
That passenger, a female Baylor student, was killed as a result of the crash.
The affidavit also says ambulance personnel on the scene told police the driver was intoxicated.
A McLennan County judge signed a warrant for Nyamandi’s blood to be drawn at a local hospital to check blood alcohol content. The results of that test have not been released, but later that morning, Nyamandi was charged with intoxication manslaughter — a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.
Texas law defines intoxication manslaughter as when someone is “intoxicated and by reason of that intoxication causes the death of another by accident or mistake.”
Nyamandi was booked into the McLennan County jail Saturday and was later released on a $40,000 bond, a jail spokesperson said.
Waco residents Adrian Vega and Pauline Cervantes said there had been several crashes near their houses at the intersection of S. Third Street and Garden Drive, where the crash happened at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday.
City of Waco traffic engineer Christine Miller said there have been nine crashes close to that intersection in the last two years. Four of the nine were collisions with fixed objects, and two more were crashes with parked cars.
Witnesses told The Lariat Nyamandi’s vehicle collided with a parked pickup truck on S. Third Street.
Miller said there were four collisions in 2020 and two in 2021; as of Sept. 22, there have been three collisions this year.
“There must be five angle collisions in a 12-month period to warrant an all-way stop at an intersection,” Miller said. “That is not the case at the intersection of S. Third Street and Garden Drive.”
S. Third Street does not have a stop sign where it intersects with Garden Drive. There have been four crashes since November 2021 close to the intersection.
The family of the student killed in Saturday’s accident has requested their daughter’s name not be released to the public, and The Lariat is respecting their decision.
