NBC’s Kerry Sanders reports for TODAY.
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Football games at Oklahoma State University are more than community events.
Stillwater police say Chambers drove her auto into a crowd at OSU’s Homecoming Parade Saturday morning.
“Essentially you have someone driving under the influence and they end up killing four persons”. The next court date for Chambers is set for November 13 so charges can be presented.
The district attorney asked for two weeks to file the four counts of second-degree murder.
Among the injured were nine children 10 years old or younger.
Floyd Chambers, left, walks with attorney Tony Coleman, right, in the courthouse in Stillwater, Okla., Monday, October 26, 2015, following an initial court appearance by his daughter, Adacia Chambers.
One of the injured had been a baby sitter for Lewis, she said.
“The only thing I can relate it to is a few type of bombing”, said McNitt, whose father-in-law Leo Schmitz, 54, was critically injured.
Chambers’ family’s confusion is compounded by the grief they feel for the victims and their families, they said.
Police are awaiting the results of blood tests to determine whether she was impaired by drugs or alcohol. “I hope we don’t lose any more”, the university’s president, Burns Hargis, said in an afternoon press conference.
Upon booking, Chambers said she had a history of suicide attempts.
Coleman said that he met with Chambers before her arraignment and that “she was a little bit more withdrawn” than when he first interviewed her, solidifying his suspicion that she might be suffering from a mental illness.
Coleman said when he told Chambers at the jail that four people died in the crash “it had zero effect on her”.
“She was with her grandmother and aunt”, Coleman said.
“It just touches my heart that people think, ‘Oh, I bet the hospital could use bottled water; I’ll drop it off, ‘” she said. Floyd Chambers couldn’t be reached for comment Sunday by The Associated Press.
Witnesses described a scene of chaos as bodies flew into the air from the impact and landed on the road.
Of the 47 people treated after the crash, 17 remained hospitalized and four were in critical condition Sunday, officials said. Ten people, including two OSU men’s basketball players, were killed in a 2001 plane crash while returning from a game in Colorado.
Killed on the scene were a married couple, Bonnie and Marvin Stone, both 65 and of Stillwater, as well as Nikita Nakal, 23, of Mumbai, India, police said.
“He was loved by students and one of the best teachers we had”, said Ron Elliott, the former head of the Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Department at OSU. “He just really had a gift for connecting with students and helping them learn”, Elliott said in a telephone interview. The Stillwater police had erroneously referred to her as Nakita.
At the corner of the intersection where the suspect’s auto came to a stop, a makeshift memorial grew Sunday with balloons, flowers, stuffed teddy bears and candles with black and orange ribbons tied around them, for the school’s colors. A handmade sign read, “It’s always darkest before dawn”.
Kwak later discovered the baby she saw, Nash Lucas, 2, died at OU Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City on Saturday evening from injuries suffered during the crash.
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“I’ve lived here my whole life, and this blows my mind”, she said.
