Vehicular homicide cases postponed

By Ashley Luthern | July 21, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Action was postponed Wednesday in two separate cases where defendants are accused of vehicular homicide.

Raechel Zorger, 25, of Canfield, and Christopher Kelso, 29, of Youngstown, were scheduled to have pretrial hearings in Mahoning County Court on Wednesday.

Zorger was indicted June 9 on aggravated vehicular homicide charges in the April deaths of her unborn child and Darla Schumacher, 55, of Detwiler Road. Police said Schumacher was killed just after 5 p.m. April 12 when the car she was driving collided with Zorger’s car on Detwiler just south of Western Reserve Road in Beaver Township.

Defense attorneys representing Zorger filed a motion to suppress evidence earlier in the week, and the prosecution asked for time to prepare. The motion will be addressed at a hearing Aug. 11, according to court documents. Zorger’s trial had been scheduled to begin Monday.

Zorger was six months’ pregnant at the time of the accident and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.259, police said. The legal limit in Ohio is 0.08.

Kelso was indicted July 15, 2010, on charges of aggravated vehicular homicide stemming from a Feb. 3 car crash that killed Pamela Kennedy, 28, of Boardman and injured another passenger. The accident took place in the 700 block of Wilson Avenue, and police said the car swerved left of center at Prospect Street, entered a grassy area before striking a utility pole and landing upside down with its occupants trapped inside.

In Kelso’s case, legal counsel conferred over the phone and came to an agreement that the pretrial be moved to another date, which has yet to be determined, court officials said.