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Woman in car crash indicted for murder

Excessive speed cited in collision that killed two on Haleakala Highway; defendant held on $1M bond

Wellman

The Maui News

WAILUKU — A 34-year-old woman has been indicted on charges of murder and excessive speeding in connection with a collision on Haleakala Highway last year that killed two women in another vehicle.

During her arraignment Wednesday in 2nd Circuit Court, Ashley Wellman of Waiehu pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and excessive speeding.

She is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at the Maui Community Correctional Center, pending a bail hearing next week.

Police records show Wellman was arrested Tuesday on the indictment, which was handed down Friday by a Maui County grand jury.

The collision occurred at 10:26 a.m. Oct. 8, 2016, when a silver Nissan sedan traveling uphill on Haleakala Highway ran a red light and broadsided a white Toyota truck that was turning left onto the highway from Makani Road, police said. After colliding into the truck, the sedan crossed the centerline and hit a vehicle stopped in traffic, which then hit the vehicle stopped behind it, police said.

Debra Wylie, a 63-year-old Pukalani resident who was driving the truck, and her passenger, 57-year-old Traci Winegarner of Pukalani, died at the scene of the crash.

Debris and car parts were strewn across the highway, and witnesses reported seeing smoke from the collision.

Wellman, who was driving the Nissan sedan, was transported to Maui Memorial Medical Center with injuries that weren’t life-threatening, police said. Five people in the two other vehicles hit by the Nissan also were transported to the hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Wellman faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A trial for her was set for Jan. 16.

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