Driver indicted in deaths of her unborn child, woman

Staff report

Youngstown

A Canfield woman is indicted on aggravated vehicular homicide charges in the April deaths of her unborn child and another woman.

A Mahoning County grand jury indicted 25-year-old Raechel Zorger of Calla Road on Thursday. She is charged with two second-degree felony counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and one second-degree misdemeanor count of child endangering.

Darla Schumacher, 55, of Detwiler Road, was killed just after 5 p.m. April 12 when the car she was driving collided with Zorger’s car. The accident took place on Detwiler just south of Western Reserve Road in Beaver Township.

Zorger, who was six months pregnant at the time, drove left of center, causing the accident, according to police.

She had a blood-alcohol level of 0.259, said Trooper Brad Bucey, of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The legal limit in Ohio is 0.08.

“The prosecutor felt that due to the high level of alcohol and the crash that led to the deaths, that both [homicide] charges were needed,” he said.

Bucey said charges weren’t filed right away because they were waiting for the coroner’s report to determine if it was the alcohol or the crash that killed Zorger’s fetus.

“It was the crash that killed the child,” he said.

A warrant was issued Thursday for Zorger’s arrest, though she wasn’t in police custody as of Thursday evening.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said though he knows of cases in which a mother is charged in the death of her fetus, but doesn’t know of any in Mahoning County.

“I don’t specifically recall any other cases like this one,” he said.

Ohio Revised Code states that if an “unborn member of the species homo sapiens, who is or was carried in the womb of another” is killed, the resulting charges can range from aggravated murder to negligent homicide to aggravated vehicular homicide, depending on the circumstances.

Zorger’s arraignment date is pending. If convicted, she faces up to eight years in prison and a fine of up to $15,000 on each felony charge and up to three months in prison and a fine of up to $750 on the misdemeanor charge.

In addition to these new charges, Zorger has been charged in two other incidents involving alcohol in the past five years.

In February 2009, Zorger was arrested by Beaver Township police after a domestic dispute with a former boyfriend, according to a police report.

Zorger and the male were both intoxicated and combative with officers while their 5-month-old baby was in the house.

She pleaded no contest to charges of child endangering, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct while intoxicated and was found guilty by a judge. She was fined, placed on one year’s probation and ordered to seek drug and alcohol treatment, according to court records.

In April 2006, Shenango Township police arrested Zorger, who was 20 at the time, and charged her with driving under the influence.

As a first-time offender, she was entered into Pennsylvania Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition, allowing her to stay out of jail, avoid a one-year license suspension and keep her record clean, according to court documents.