Prosecutor: Driver In Fatal Wreck Attended Two Parties Before Crash

ROCKVILLE --- The driver in a crash that killed three young adults in Olney on Sunday was speeding and had been drinking, the Montgomery County State's Attorney told a judge at a bail review hearing Monday afternoon.

State's Attorney John McCarthy told Judge William G. Simmons that 20-year-old Kevin Coffay had attended at least two parties where alcohol was being consumed before the 2007 Toyota Corolla he was driving slammed into a telephone pole and two trees.

Simmons reduced Coffay's bail from $500,000 to 10 percent, or $50,000, with pre-trial supervision this afternoon in a District Court room in Rockville packed with family and friends.

The crash happened minutes after 3 a.m. Sunday on Olney-Laytonsville Road at the intersection with Volunteer Road and killed three of the car's five occupants.

Haeley N. McGuire, 18, of the 5600 block of Artesian Drive in Derwood, was taken to a MedStar hospital in Columbia, where she was pronounced dead.

Spencer Datt, 18, of the 5700 block of Sunrise Hill Road in Derwood, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. He was the passenger in the car’s right front seat.

John Hoover, 20, of the 5800 block of Rolling Drive in Derwood, was taken to Montgomery General Hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was the passenger in the center rear seat.

Charles Anthony Nardella, 19, of the 7700 block of Shady Brook Lane in the Hadley Farms community next to Montgomery Village, was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. He was the passenger in the car’s left rear seat.

McGuire was a senior at Magruder High, said Dana Tofig, a county schools spokesman. The other occupants of the car graduated from Magruder in 2009 and 2010, Tofig said.

After the crash, Coffay got out of the car and fled through the woods, the charging documents state.

A police K-9 unit tracked him for 2.5 hours, twice spotting him before Coffay fled again, the documents state. He ended up at the home of a friend, who drove him to his mother's home in the 16700 block of Cutlass Drive in Rockville.

There he was met by police, who arrested him in his driveway, McCarthy said.

McCarthy argued that because Coffay fled the scene, he is a flight risk and should remain in custody.

But Michael J. McAuliffe, Coffay's attorney, said his client was not a flight risk.

"It wasn't like he was on the road to California," McAuliffe said. "He went to his friend's house, who drove him to his mother's house."

He added that Coffay's actions were those of a panicky kid who was under a lot of stress.

Coffay is going through a difficult time at home, McAuliffe added. His father, not yet 60, was recently admitted to a home to treat his Alzheimer's disease, and his mother suffers from cancer.

"This is probably the saddest case I've ever been associated with," he said. "We want to get him home, to get him the appropriate treatment."

Appearing via video-conference from the Montgomery County Detention Center where he is being held, Coffay did not speak during the hearing. He stood in a green jumpsuit with his head hung.

McCarthy told the judge that at 8 a.m. Coffay had said, "They were all fine when I left."

He described Coffay's leaving the scene while his friends died as a callous act.

But McAuliffe, after the hearing, disagreed with McCarthy's characterization.

"He didn't do anything callously," he said. "He could be any of our kids."

The State Police are analyzing a blood sample from Coffay that was taken at the hospital.

He is charged with failure to remain at the scene of an accident involving injury, failure to remain at the scene of an accident involving death, failure to render reasonable assistance to an injured person, failure to report bodily injury to police, and attempting to elude uniformed police by fleeing on foot.

But McCarthy said since the investigation is ongoing, more charges could be filed.

With the current charges, Coffay faces up to 11 years 4 months in prison.

Members of the Coffay family declined to comment at the hearing.

Coffay received two previous traffic citations. Once in 2008 for speeding on I-270 and once in July of last year where McCarthy said he crashed his car into two mailboxes while driving at 3 a.m.

He pleaded guilty to both incidents.

Coffay's next court date is July 12 at 1:30 p.m.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call county police’s Collision Reconstruction Unit at 301-840-2435.