HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Special Prosecutor Mark Sorsaia won’t put a timeline on the investigation into the death of a teenager in Huntington.
Sorsaia, who is the Putnam County prosecuting attorney, was assigned to explore the potential for criminal wrongdoing in the death of Laney Hudson, 13.
Hudson was struck by a Cabell County Sheriff’s Department Cruiser as she crossed a Huntington Street back on Dec. 30. The cruiser was being driven by off-duty Cabell County Deputy Jeff Racer. The Cabell County prosecutor and Cabell County sheriff both recused their offices from the probe for a potential conflict of interest.
“We’re going to conduct a thorough investigation, but I don’t want to put a timeline on it because you never know what you’ll find in the course of an investigation, but we’re going to get a handle on it,” Sorsaia said Friday.
He met with the State Police accident reconstructionist this week and said the science from his work will be critical to the case. There were early plans to collect data from the crash on the vehicle’s “black box” data recorder, but Sorsaia said now it doesn’t appear to be an option.
“Unfortunately,this black box is not going to reveal too much. It’s my understanding it may not have triggered or turned on unless the air bags deployed and the air bags did not deploy. But we still have other ways,” he explained.
Authorities have already indicated a sobriety test on the deputy revealed no impairment at the time of the accident. There was also a passenger in the vehicle. The Kanawha County Sheriff’s Department has been assigned to investigate potential departmental policy violations in tied to the incident. Sorsaia said those findings had no bearing on his probe.
“Policy considerations about when can you drive the cruiser or whether you can drive the cruiser when you’re not working or who can be a passenger in the cruiser and who can’t, those are administrative policies and they’re not really relevant as to whether there was any criminal activity involved in the accident,” Sorsaia said.
The teen’s death along with the circumstances of a police cruiser and an off duty deputy at the wheel have made the case a high profile investigation. Sorsaia said he realized the attention, but added it would not impact the speed or the considerations in the probe. He said they will thoroughly research and examine all aspects of the case, including some which might be uncomfortable.
“We’re going to investigate what happened and why it happened. Was there negligence involved, either by the driver or by, unfortunately, the victim? She was with a group of kids. We want to know the social circumstances of that meeting as to why they were there, on that street at that time of night. We tragically lost a young person and we’re going to look at all of it,” he said.