16-Year-Old Driver Charged in Fatal Crash

Updated 11:10 p.m.

WSB TV reported late Tuesday that Nichols is the charged teen's mother, and that the teen's father, Michael Mosley, plans to take his son to the youth detention center in Cobb County Wednesday morning.

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Cobb County Police on Tuesday announced that a 16-year-old driver is facing charges of homicide by vehicle in the second degree and failure to yield while turning left. The wreck claimed the life of 45-year-old Kimberly Michelle Nichols of Dallas. Another Dallas woman, 40-year-old Karen Lynn Flury, sustained injuries in the crash and was taken to WellStar Kennestone Hospital.

The teen, who drove a 2002 Volkswagen Cabriolet involved in the wreck, came away from the crash with non-life-threatening injuries and was taken after the crash to Kennestone. He is not being identified by authorities. Nichols was a passenger in the teen’s Volkswagen.

Flury was the driver of a 1999 Ford Mustang involved in the crash. The third vehicle involved, a 2008 Mazda-3, was driven by 19-year-old Joseph Kirkland of Powder Springs, who did not sustain injury.

Preliminary information from the scene indicates that the Volkswagen was eastbound on Dallas Highway attempting to make a left turn onto northbound Old Hamilton Road. Directly in front of the Volkswagen—and in the intersection also—attempting to turn left onto southbound Casteel Road from westbound Dallas Highway, was a large white box truck. According to witnesses, as the Volkswagen turned left out of the intersection and onto northbound Old Hamilton Road, it was struck on the passenger-side door by Flury’s Mustang, which was going westbound on Dallas Highway. Kirkland’s Mazda struck the back of the Volkswagen after the initial impact of the Mustang and Volkswagen.

The Cobb County Police Department’s S.T.E.P. (Selective Traffic Enforcement Program) Unit continues to investigate the crash.