A 35-year-old Charlotte woman has died two days after a driving-while-impaired crash severed her vehicle on WT Harris Boulevard, and the man accused of causing the collision now faces the prospect of upgraded homicide charges. Briana Watkins was declared brain dead yesterday, two days after the crash that occurred on Tuesday, according to Charlotte Alerts News. She was 35 years old.
Watkins was driving on WT Harris Boulevard in Charlotte when a separate car driven by 35-year-old Jeffrey Almond crashed into her vehicle, per the outlet's reporting. The impact reportedly severed her vehicle, and she required emergency extraction from the wreckage. Almond was arrested at the scene the same day. Mecklenburg County jail records show he was booked on August 18 on initial charges of driving while impaired and felony serious injury by vehicle, according to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office.
Extraction, CPR, and a Rapid Medical Decline
The outlet's report details a grim medical timeline for Watkins in the days after the crash. She went into respiratory arrest and suffered a collapsed lung, and medical personnel established intubation and administered continuous cardiopulmonary resuscitation during ambulance transport. She was placed on life support and underwent emergency surgical intervention before being declared brain dead two days after the crash. The outlet's report also notes that Watkins often wore men's clothing, though that detail has no bearing on the circumstances of the crash itself.
Charges Expected to Rise Under State Law
Charlotte Alerts News reports that Almond's charges will be upgraded to manslaughter or murder now that Watkins has died, but North Carolina's statutory framework points to a more specific outcome. Under North Carolina General Statute § 20-141.4(a1), a fatality caused by impaired driving is typically prosecuted as Felony Death by Vehicle, a Class D felony, according to the Powers Law Firm. That charge carries a potential active prison sentence of up to 204 months depending on a defendant's prior criminal record. Because Watkins survived long enough for Almond to first be booked on felony serious injury by vehicle, prosecutors would typically move to upgrade that charge to Felony Death by Vehicle now that she has died.
Second-degree murder is a separate and higher bar. The same law firm notes that charging a driver with murder rather than statutory death by vehicle requires prosecutors to establish implied malice, elevating the offense to a Class B2 felony punishable by 94 to 393 months in prison. Malice can be shown through evidence like extreme intoxication, egregious driving, or past impaired driving convictions, though the dossier does not indicate whether any such evidence exists in Almond's case. North Carolina law also explicitly bars double prosecution: under § 20-141.4(c), a person charged with death by vehicle cannot separately be prosecuted for manslaughter arising from the same death, according to North Carolina's General Statutes. Almond's final formal charges from a Mecklenburg County grand jury, along with any toxicology results, remain unknown.
A Boulevard With a Deadly History
WT Harris Boulevard is part of Charlotte's High Injury Network under the city's Vision Zero initiative, a set of corridors that make up just 13% of Charlotte's streets but account for 80% of all fatal and serious-injury crashes citywide, per ThatCarHitMe.com. Speed and improper driving contribute to more than 60% of severe crashes on that network. This is not the first fatal crash on the corridor: in March, an east Charlotte driver pleaded guilty and was sentenced to up to nine years for a January 2025 wrong-way crash on East WT Harris Boulevard that killed 40-year-old Yaneth Del Carmen Guevara. Hoodline also covered a fatal motorcycle collision on the same boulevard investigated by CMPD's Major Crash Investigation Unit and DWI Task Force in 2024.
City Data Shows Fatalities Climbing
The crash comes amid a troubling citywide pattern. Charlotte's fiscal year 2025 Vision Zero report found that traffic fatalities rose 9% to 81 deaths and serious injuries increased 13% to 111, even as total traffic collisions dropped nearly 31% between 2022 and 2025, according to The Charlotte Ledger. Countywide, Mecklenburg County recorded a record 147 traffic fatalities in 2024 and logged 38,400 total crashes with 176 traffic-related fatalities in 2025, leading all North Carolina counties in crash volume, per North Carolina Department of Transportation data cited by the Shane Smith Law firm.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have targeted the corridor with enforcement. CMPD's Motors Unit and DWI Task Force have run speed and impairment operations along WT Harris Boulevard, including a High Injury Network detail in the 4700 block that resulted in 110 citations, the department said. Separately, Charlotte's City Council Safety Committee voted in May to advance a pilot project for red-light cameras at 10 high-risk intersections, including WT Harris Boulevard and North Tryon Street, according to Sustain Charlotte.
