A St. Louis man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison following a tragic incident where he fled police in a stolen vehicle and caused a fatal crash. The collision, which occurred in 2022, resulted in the death of a 17-year-old girl named Samantha Washington.
According to court records, 27-year-old Arrieon D. Watson pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, a charge that was reduced from second-degree murder, as well as to leaving the scene of a fatal crash, resisting arrest, and vehicle tampering under a plea agreement. The case was initially set to go to trial this week before St. Louis Circuit Judge Bryan Hettenbach, but the guilty plea led to an early sentencing. Watson was found to have been driving between 80 and 100 mph—a clear sign that he recklessly chose to not only evade the grasp of the law but also put countless lives in imminent danger.
The crash that took Samantha Washington's life occurred at the intersection of Shreve and West Florissant Avenues, close to Bellefontaine Cemetery on March 13, 2022. As detailed in a statement obtained by the courts, Watson's vehicle violently collided with the car Washington was in, and she was ejected from the vehicle before being pronounced dead at the scene. Following the crash, Watson attempted to flee on foot but was eventually apprehended by the police.
In a poignant moment during the proceedings, Chief Trial Attorney Marvin Teer read a letter in court from monee' Washington, Samantha’s older sister. "My family will never be the same and every day is a challenge learning to live every day without her," the letter expressed, according to an official court record. The victim had an infant son and aspired to attend cosmetology school with dreams of a career in the beauty industry. In her letter, Monee' Washington also expressed a hope that Watson "can grow and learn from his mistakes and be a better person from this situation." One can only hope that amid the irreversible loss, this decade-long sentence will serve to someway prevent future tragedies of this sort.
