Traverse City Record-Eagle

Grand Traverse County

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September 3, 2009

Woman pleads guilty in deadly crash

Wreck killed her friend and 8-year-old daughter

BY ART BUKOWSKI

TRAVERSE CITY -- A Kalkaska woman who caused a grisly traffic crash that killed two people -- including her daughter -- and injured several others pleaded no contest to a criminal charge.

Louann P. Hubbard, 48, was responsible for an Aug. 25, 2008, crash on U.S. 31 a few miles south of Elk Rapids. The crash killed Hubbard's daughter, Andrea Kennedy, 8, and her friend, Barbara Antaya, 51, both of Kalkaska.

Four others, including Hubbard, were hospitalized with serious injuries after the three-vehicle crash in Grand Traverse County's Acme Township.

Hubbard pleaded no contest to a single count of negligent homicide. A second identical count was dismissed in exchange for the plea.

Antaya was a front-seat passenger in Hubbard's vehicle, and Andrea sat in the back. Hubbard's vehicle, traveling south on U.S. 31, crossed the center line near Bates Road and struck an oncoming pickup truck, then crashed into a Cadillac traveling behind the pickup.

Three Traverse City-area women in the Cadillac were seriously injured, but all eventually recovered. The driver of the pickup truck wasn't hurt.

Police never figured out why Hubbard crossed the center line, Grand Traverse Sheriff's Capt. Tom Emerson said.

"It probably never should have happened," he said. "It was a clear, sunny day; the roads were clear and dry."

Hubbard had a prescription for methadone, and the drug was present in her system at the time of the crash, assistant Grand Traverse Prosecutor Bob Cooney said. Officials couldn't prove it hampered her driving.

"We simply did not have a case for intoxication," he said.

Emerson said the crash was among the worst he's seen in nearly three decades of law enforcement. It took authorities more than four hours to clear mangled wreckage from the busy roadway, and the number of injured nearly overwhelmed rescuers.

"We were running out of medical personnel that day," Emerson said. "It was a handful."

Failed efforts to save Andrea, a third-grader at Birch Street Elementary in Kalkaska, hit rescuers hard.

"It was particularly disheartening to everybody there that the little girl passed away," he said.

Hubbard's attorney, Paul T. Jarboe, said she is "still devastated" by the crash, and the plea helped bring closure.

"She has consistently felt horrible," he said.

Hubbard's sentencing is set for Sept. 25.

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