Driver in fatal crash pleads guilty
A Barrington-area woman faces up to 10 years in prison after admitting Wednesday she caused a car crash that killed a Fox Lake man.
Dana Cameron, 34, whose exact address is unclear, pleaded guilty to aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol, reckless homicide and failure to stop at the scene of a fatal crash during a hearing before Lake County Circuit Judge Victoria Rossetti.
Lake County Assistant State's Attorney James Newman said Cameron was driving south on Route 12 near Molidor Road around 5 p.m. on Nov. 8.
A witness told police Cameron passed him at a high rate of speed, made several erratic lane changes and eventually spun her 2000 Chevrolet Cavalier around.
During the spin, Newman said, Cameron's car sideswiped a 2000 Chrysler Sebring driven by Maurice Torres, 49, of Fox Lake and pushed it across a median strip into the northbound lanes of Route 12.
Torres' car struck a 2006 Cadillac driven by a 56-year-old Ingleside woman, who suffered several broken ribs in the crash, Newman said.
Torres died at the scene from massive internal injuries, the Lake County coroner's office said.
After she recovered her car from the spin, Cameron drove away from the scene, Newman said, but the witness followed her while contacting police on his cell phone.
She drove for more than a mile to the parking lot of the Camp Duncan YMCA campgrounds, where the witness blocked her car from leaving until police arrived.
Cameron and a passenger in her car were taken to the Northern Illinois Medical Center in McHenry, where they were treated and released.
Newman said a Breathalyzer test administered to Cameron three hours after the crash showed her blood alcohol content to be .176, almost twice the legal threshold of intoxication of .08 percent.
Rossetti told Cameron that under the terms of her plea agreement, she would be eligible for probation only if the court could find "extraordinary circumstances" justifying such a sentence.
Barring such a finding, Cameron will be subject to a sentence of at least three years in prison.
Cameron will remain in the Lake County jail on $500,000 bond until the sentencing hearing.