DELAWARE COUNTY — A Delaware County jury has found truck driver Modou Ngom guilty of three counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and five counts of vehicular assault in a fiery nine-vehicle crash on Interstate 71 that killed a young Delaware County couple and their 1-year-old son.
The verdict, reached Friday after about two hours of deliberation, stems from the April 11 crash near the U.S. 36 and State Route 37 interchange. Ngom, 51, was driving a semi tractor-trailer when he plowed into traffic backed up in the northbound lanes of I-71, setting off a chain-reaction collision.
Dr. Lynnea Soposki, 36, her husband Luke Soposki, 37, and their 1-year-old son Logan all died in the crash. Dr. Soposki worked as a veterinarian at the Muirfield Animal Hospital in Dublin, and the family lived in Ashley in Delaware County. Three other people were hurt.
The family’s vehicle caught fire after the impact. The crash happened inside a construction zone tied to the Ohio Department of Transportation’s improved interchange project at I-71, U.S. 36 and State Route 37, where the northbound ramp had been reduced to a single lane days earlier.
Ngom is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 29 and now faces prison time. Relatives of the Soposkis have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Ngom, as has one of the women injured in the crash, according to reports.
The case drew wide attention across central Ohio as one of the deadliest highway crashes in the region this year, renewing scrutiny of work-zone safety on one of the state’s busiest freight corridors.
