Woman accused of deadly revenge crash faces jury as boyfriend’s hospital account stays out of trial

A Florida woman accused of deliberately crashing an SUV with her boyfriend inside was furious over another girl’s text messages before making a sharp turn into the woods at nearly 100 mph, prosecutors told jurors Tuesday.

But Leigha Mumby’s defense attorney offered a different explanation as her trial opened, suggesting something happened inside the vehicle that she neither anticipated nor controlled.

Mumby, 25, has pleaded not guilty to vehicular homicide and reckless driving causing serious bodily injury in the death of Daniel Waterman, 22, who survived the crash, but died eight months later.

Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark told jurors the couple had left a Super Bowl party before the Feb.

9, 2025, wreck on Interstate 95 in Flagler County, according to proceedings livestreamed by Court TV.

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Vehicle data showed it was moving at 94 mph in the final seconds before an "abrupt, left-hand turn at 45 degrees" sent it off the highway and into the woods.

The prosecutor described the turn as "a dangerous and reckless maneuver." Waterman suffered a broken neck that left him paralyzed from the neck down, Clark said.

He fell into a coma and, after awakening, could not breathe on his own.

His death on Oct.

8, 2025, was "directly related and caused by this crash," Clark told the jury, who will not hear Waterman's own account of the crash that he told detectives before he died.

He told investigators from his hospital bed that Mumby deliberately swerved off the road following an argument over another woman's text message.

A judge ruled those statements inadmissible, leaving prosecutors unable to present his version of events at trial.

Defense attorney Reid Hart called the case a "pure and utter tragedy" and urged jurors to consider whether the SUV’s sudden change in direction resulted from something outside Mumby’s control.