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Teen's text-message countdown warns of suicidal crash

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published October 21, 2006

ATLANTA - A lovesick 16-year-old girl crashed her car into an oncoming vehicle in a suicide attempt, counting down the moments before impact in text messages sent to the female classmate who spurned her, authorities say. The girl survived; a woman in the other car was killed.

The teenager, Louise Egan Brunstad, was charged Thursday with murder in the Oct. 4 wreck.

"There was what might be described as a countdown to the actual event: 10, 9, 8 ... then the crash," District Attorney Paul Howard said.

Howard said it was unclear whether the classmate the messages were intended for responded to them or even read them.

Authorities said Brunstad rammed her family's Mercedes-Benz head-on into a smaller car driven by 30-year-old Nancy Salado-Mayo, a mother of three. Salado-Mayo was killed, and her 6-year-old daughter Lesly, who was in a child safety seat, suffered broken ribs and other injuries.

Brunstad, who was treated for an ankle injury, had told friends she planned to kill herself after another student at Holy Innocents Episcopal School refused to have sex with her, Howard said.

Witnesses said the girl never slowed as she crossed over a turning lane and into traffic on busy Roswell Road in Atlanta on Oct. 4.

Prosecutors intend to try her as an adult. If convicted, she faces an automatic life sentence.

The girl's attorney, Drew Findling, expressed the family's sadness over the accident. He said she was released on bail Friday.

Howard said the terms of her bail require her to enter a mental health facility and wear a monitor to prevent her from running away.

[Last modified October 21, 2006, 01:39:18]