HENRICO COUNTY, Va. - Police arrested a Richmond man accused of causing a crash that killed a Henrico nurse on Old Osborne Turnpike in eastern Henrico.
Jimmy Lee Green Jr., 31, of Selden Street, is charged with Vehicular Involuntary Manslaughter.
Green was driving north on Old Osborne Turnpike June 19 when his car entered the southbound lane and struck two other cars, police said.
The driver of the Chevrolet Camaro, 23-year-old Melissa Haislip, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Haislip, a Longwood University and Varina High School graduate, was returning home from her nursing job at St. Mary's Hospital at the time of the accident.
Green, in an interview from Henrico Jail East, with CBS 6 reporter Sandra Jones, said that he was enroute to pick up his fiancee, who is also a nurse.
Green said that he was rushing to get her, and that he was trying to locate his cellphone, and he looked down for just one second to get it.
That’s when the accident happened.
“They say it only takes one second,” he said. “When I looked back up it was too late.”
He insisted he was not drunk.
“I think I did drink one or two beers,” he said. “But that wouldn’t have gotten me to a point where I couldn’t drive.”
He said he was not been texting, but admitted to driving a little too fast. He said he couldn’t see the road well and that he didn’t have his glasses.
“I will never get behind the wheel of a car,” he said in an exclusive interview. “This tragedy made me to the point where I’m scared now to get in the car or behind the car wheel.”
Green was also injured in the accident, according to the woman who says she is his fiancee, he broke his hip.
“I was sad, don’t know what else to do – to say to her family, to bring her back,” he said of the moment he found out Haislip had died.
He said all he can do now is pray.
What happened, happened. I have to deal with the consequences, whatever they are going to do with me.”
Green was found guilty of a reckless driving charge in 2010.
