Josseline Molina-Rivas Maryland 12 year old killed when car she was driving crashed into tree. Step-father was sitting in front passenger seat during early morning crash.
A 12 year old girl was killed when the vehicle she was driving careened off a Maryland parkway. The child’s step-father who was sitting in the front passenger seat sustained critical injuries.
Josseline Molina-Rivas was behind the wheel with her 36-year-old stepfather as the passenger, Howard County police and the girl’s family said on Monday.
The girl was pronounced dead at the scene. The stepfather, Mario Arturo-Artiga, was seriously hurt and transported to hospital where he now remains in a coma, WWNYTV reported.
‘The police came knocking on the door and said, ‘Who is Josseline?’ I responded, ‘My daughter,’’ Grecia Rivas, Josseline’s mother, told WRC in Spanish. ‘Josseline was driving my vehicle? I didn’t know that my daughter was driving my car. I never gave her my car. I never taught her how to drive.’
Police said the pair were headed south on Broken Land Parkway shortly after 2 a.m. when the family’s Toyota Corolla car went out of control, hitting an oak tree in Columbia. They said they believe speed was a factor in the crash.
Why was 12 year old girl driving?
Rivas said her daughter was beside her in bed when she went to sleep, but she woke up and couldn’t find her — or her car keys.
‘I don’t know anything,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know where they were going.’
‘She was friendly, funny, very funny and very smart,’ Rivas said. ‘I can’t accept I’ll never see her again.’
Police are still trying to determine why the girl was driving and why either of the two were in the car at 2 a.m.
Police were making enquiries into whether the 12 year old girl or her step-dad was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
‘This is particularly unusual because of the girl’s age and also because it was a 2 am,’ Sherry Llewellyn, of the Howard County Police Department said. ‘So we have a lot of investigation to do to determine all the details.’
Family members said they were not prepared for the high cost of a funeral service and have established a GoFundMe fundraiser.