A Flagler County jury convicted Leigha Mumby of vehicular homicide after she deliberately drove into trees at nearly 100 mph, killing her boyfriend hours after learning she was pregnant.
Jurors needed just over an hour on Wednesday to find the 25-year-old Florida woman guilty of vehicular homicide and reckless driving with serious bodily injury in the February 2025 wreck off Interstate 95.
Prosecutors argued Mumby intentionally steered the car into several trees while fighting with her boyfriend, 22-year-old New York native Daniel Waterman, who later died of pneumonia after months of catastrophic injuries. Sentencing is set for a later date.
The crash came hours after Mumby learned she was pregnant. The couple was already arguing because Waterman had been texting another woman.
Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark told the jury Mumby’s rage was plain in the moments before impact.
"She’s so furious she calls her best friend to vent about it, screaming about Daniel texting with another woman,"
Clark said in closing arguments reported by Flaglerlive. She pressed the point further.
"And when her best friend doesn’t react the way she likes, she abruptly hangs up. That was Leigha Mumby’s demeanor at the time of the crash."
Mumby was behind the wheel traveling at speeds of up to 110 mph. The deadly crash registered at 94 mph when she suddenly turned left off the interstate and smashed into the trees.
Waterman suffered a broken neck. He fell into a coma and was paralyzed. He later woke long enough to tell authorities Mumby crashed on purpose. In October 2025 he died of pneumonia.
Mumby was badly hurt in the wreck. She recovered and later gave birth to the child she was carrying.
Personal turmoil and pregnancy news have a way of exposing hard choices, much as debates over pregnancy complications and legal fallout show when private decisions meet public consequence.
Defense attorney Reid Hart rejected any claim that Mumby set out to kill anyone. He told jurors there was no proof she meant to endanger the three lives in the car.
"There’s absolutely zero evidence or reasons to believe that she was in a place where she was going to put all of their lives, including hers and that of her own unborn child, at risk of serious violent harm or death,"
Hart argued she tried to avoid the crash once the car left the road.
"Her efforts to avoid the crash, as soon as that input gets made, illustrate that she never intended for that to happen in the first place."
Mumby claimed she did not know what led to the crash. The jury rejected that account after a short deliberation.
Relationship secrecy and sudden pregnancy can detonate a household. High-profile personal scandals, including cases where private affairs spilled into public view, show how quickly trust collapses when texts and hidden contacts surface.
The Flagler County case echoes another deadly “deliberate crash” conviction. In 2022, then-17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla slammed her car into a brick warehouse at 100 mph in Strongsville, Ohio. The wreck killed her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, 20, and his friend Davion Flanagan, 19.
An Ohio jury convicted Shirilla in 2023. A judge called her “literal hell on wheels.” She is serving 15 years to life. Just last month a judge denied her bid to reopen the case, ending her state appeals.
Both cases turned on high speed, a romantic dispute, and a passenger who never walked away. In Florida, Waterman’s reported statement to authorities that Mumby crashed on purpose became a central piece of the state’s case.
Family formation remains a live cultural question. Trends showing conservatives having more children underscore how pregnancy still forces adults to face responsibility rather than rage.
Mumby now awaits sentencing for the wreck that left her child’s father dead. The jury’s quick verdict treated the crash as intentional conduct, not a random loss of control on I-95.
When fury meets a steering wheel at highway speed, the law still draws a hard line between accident and choice, and Florida jurors just enforced it.