Quincy Everett led authorities on a high-speed chase that ended in two deaths last year, but he isn’t solely responsible for the Jupiter crash, his attorney argued Monday.
Defense attorney Kelly Landers hinted in the opening of Everett’s trial that the Martin County deputies who pursued Everett bear some blame for the July 1998 collision.
But a deputy testified that authorities had given up chasing Everett before he ran a red light at Donald Ross Road and Military Trail. Everett’s car plowed through the intersection at 65 mph, slamming into a minivan, which collided with another minivan and a motorcycle.
The motorcyclist William Carboni, 41, and one of Everett’s passengers, Avonchalene Keisha Liptrot, 24, died in the crash. Everett ran into nearby woods, where he hid for 20 hours until he surrendered.
Assistant State Attorney Ellen Roberts said Everett “totally disregarded” the lives of everyone on the road, including his two passengers.
Everett, of Goulds, faces life in prison if he is convicted of all the charges he faces — two counts of vehicular homicide, two counts of manslaughter and a count of leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
The 30-mile chase with speeds up to 110 mph began after Everett, Liptrot and 18-year-old Lanayshell Onekia Dean were suspected of grabbing $600 of designer clothing from the Treasure Coast Square in Jensen Beach.
A Martin County grand jury found in September 1998 that deputies were right to pursue Everett after a mall security guard incorrectly reported that the store had been robbed. Deputies can pursue suspects only if they have committed a violent felony or are a public danger.
The panel found that Martin County deputies “were actively pursuing the suspect at the time of the crash,” contradicting deputies’ accounts that the pursuit had been called off.
Landers questioned crash witnesses Monday on whether they heard sirens at the time of the crash. At least two said they didn’t.
Martin County deputy Dean Yingling testified he had turned off his sirens before he saw Everett’s 1998 white Lumina barreling toward the intersection.
