PLYMOUTH — Two Lower Providence Township police officers recently received commendations for leading the successful investigation that resulted in the convictions of the driver and the owner of a dump truck involved in a two-vehicle crash that claimed the life of the second driver, a pregnant Lansdale woman.
Police Sergeant Ryan Singleton and Officer Timothy Arthur received commendations for “exceptional performance” from Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele during Steele’s annual law enforcement commendation ceremony.
“I am very proud of the excellent investigation into this tragic fatal crash that took a young mother and her unborn daughter away from her family,” Steele said as he presented the commendations to the officers during the ceremony at the county Public Safety Training Campus in Plymouth Township.
The head-on crash that occurred about 3 p.m. on Aug. 25, 2022, along Park Avenue in Lower Providence killed 31-year-old Kellie Adams, of Lansdale, who was eight months pregnant, and her baby Emersyn Grace Adams, who was stillborn. Adams was a 2009 graduate of North Penn High School and was a middle and high school teacher at Cottage Seven Academy in Phoenixville.
Based on evidence gathered by Singleton and Arthur and presented at trial, a jury convicted Everett James Clayton, 57, of Charleston, W. Va., the driver of the dump truck, of third-degree murder and third-degree murder of an unborn child, determining Clayton was unlicensed, was speeding and had alcohol in his system and showed an extreme indifference to the value of human life while driving.
In January, Clayton was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison.
The owner of the truck, Patrick Hadley Doran, 24, of Gaithersburg, Md., who also went by the name Jacob Fury, was sentenced last year to 3½ to 7 years in prison on a felony charge of homicide by vehicle, to which he pleaded guilty.
Doran admitted that he allowed the truck that he owned for his paving business to be operated on the roadway in violation of numerous requirements of the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Code. Prosecutors alleged the truck was not properly registered or titled, inspected or insured and should have never been on the roadway.
The crash involved a 2003 Ford F650 XLT Super Duty truck operated by Clayton and a 2021 Chevrolet Tahoe operated by Adams. Clayton was traveling southbound in the 500 block of South Park Avenue and Adams was traveling northbound at the time of the crash.
The two-lane roadway includes a double yellow line in the center dividing the northbound and southbound lanes and also includes a grooved pavement that alerts drivers if they begin to move from the lane, according to trial testimony.
The roadway has a posted 40 mph speed limit and vehicles approaching a curve in the southbound direction pass a posted traffic control warning indicator advising of the curve with a recommended speed of 25 mph, police said.
Testimony revealed Clayton was traveling about 58 mph shortly before entering the curve in the roadway, about 650 feet before the impact between the two vehicles.
During the investigation, authorities recovered cellphone video depicting Clayton’s driving habits for more than 25 minutes leading up to the fatal crash. Clayton, according to testimony, had been recording video on his cellphone, which was located on his vehicle’s dashboard, facing out the front windshield, as he traveled 13 miles through four jurisdictions including Upper Gwynedd, North Wales, Worcester and Lower Providence.
Prosecutors argued the video footage showed Clayton excessively speeding, tailgating other vehicles and continuously operating his vehicle in a reckless manner, including a near-miss incident with two other vehicles several miles before the fatal crash.
The commendations presented to Singleton and Arthur were among honors handed to four civilians and more than three dozen law enforcement officers during Steele’s annual law enforcement award ceremony. Steele said commendations are awarded to those who make extraordinary efforts and perform exemplary work in protecting and serving the residents of Montgomery County.
“These are stories of going that extra mile to solve a crime, save lives, complete an investigation, protect others or fast-thinking action where law enforcement and civilians put themselves in danger,” Steele said during the ceremony.
