A Utah man accused of killing five people in an explosive interstate crash near Rawlins last year has agreed to plead guilty.
Arthur Nelson, who turns 59 this year, signed a plea deal last week in which he agreed to plead guilty to five counts of aggravated vehicular homicide in the January 2023 deaths of Suzy and Andrea Prime, Salomon Correa, Magdalene “Maggie” Franco and Ava Luplow.
The five young people, all between the ages of 18-23, were returning to their Arkansas homes from a weeklong visit to Jackson Hole Bible College.
Here’s The Deal
Nelson agreed with his signature last week to plead guilty to five counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and one count of driving while on drugs to cause serious injury.
That sixth count pertains to the female driver of an MS Freight truck, whose head reportedly caught fire in the explosive chain-reaction crash that spanned opposite Interstate roadways on Jan. 22, 2023.
“If your client pleads guilty to (these charges), the state will dismiss the remaining counts,” wrote Carbon County Attorney Sarah Chavez Harkins in a plea agreement signed May 10, which would have expired Monday had Nelson not signed it.
The remaining likely-to-be-dismissed counts include a smattering of misdemeanor charges including reckless endangering and driving with a suspended license.
Nelson’s license was reportedly suspended because of an earlier DUI.
In exchange for his six pleas of guilty, Harkins has agreed to cap her sentencing argument at 15-20 years on each homicide charge — to run consecutively — plus another 8-10 on the felony DUI, to run simultaneously with the larger sentence.
If Carbon County District Court Judge Dawnessa Snyder accepts this plea agreement and takes Harkins’ sentencing recommendation, Nelson’s total sentence will be 75-100 years in prison.
But Nelson is free to argue for whatever sentence he deems appropriate, under the agreement.
The Fiery Crash
Nelson was driving a Dodge Ram truck the wrong way on Interstate 80 near Sinclair, Wyoming, when he collided head-on with an Infiniti SUV in the narrow passing-lane space next to a FedEx tractor-trailer, court documents say.
The Infiniti rotated into the side of the FedEx truck, whose driver brought the whole unit to a stop on the interstate’s right shoulder, while the Infiniti skidded to a stop in the driving lane, facing the wrong way, reportedly.
The Infiniti’s three occupants were treated for minor injuries and released from the hospital.
Nelson’s truck rotated, tripped and rolled once, wobbling to a stop on the right shoulder of the road, court documents say.
Debris littered the interstate.
The female driver of an MS Freight tractor trailer drove toward the scene. She reportedly shifted from the right lane into the left, and ran over a large chunk of debris, causing her truck to bounce so hard her driver’s side front steer tire failed, sending her hurtling in the truck through the median and into the opposite eastbound Interstate roadway.
The freight truck smacked into a Ford F-150 pickup containing the five people who were later found dead on scene. The Ford burst into flames: four occupants were burned and one died during or after being ejected from the vehicle, court documents say.
The freight truck, halted in a jackknife position, also caught fire.
Once on scene, Wyoming Highway Patrol Trooper Corey McCallister, rushed to the freight truck with his fire extinguisher and blasted the truck driver’s burning head and truck cab with it, court document recount.
The truck driver sustained “severe injuries,” reportedly.
A Little History
Nelson was most recently been a roofer in Utah before the crash, but had been unemployed since Oct. 23, 2022, three months before the crash, according to court filings.
He allegedly admitted to being on methamphetamine the day before the crash.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
