Driver in crash that killed 3 Idaho family members charged with DUI

The man who was arrested after plowing his truck in to an Idaho family’s SUV, killing three people in rural Nevada in March has been charged with DUI, according to the Nye County District Attorney’s office.

Tyler Kennedy, 32, of Arizona was charged with an additional five counts of DUI causing death or substantial bodily harm in addition to his original counts of reckless driving resulting in death.

Kennedy is accused of veering into oncoming traffic and causing a crash on U.S. 95 between Beatty and Goldfield on March 27, killing 39-year-old Michael Durmeier, his 12-year-old daughter, Georgia, and his 38-year-old fiancee Lauren Starcevich. Two other children in the car survived. The family was driving from their home in Victor, Idaho, to the Grand Canyon for a spring break vacation.

Kennedy told troopers at the scene that he had veered out of the road to avoid an animal in the roadway, but according to documents released by the Nevada Department of Public Safety witnesses did not report seeing an animal in the road.

Nye County deputies made contact with Kennedy about two hours before the crash at an Amargosa Valley RV park after at least one person reported that he was armed and asking people for meth. The deputies determined that Kennedy’s alleged firearm was actually a cellphone and he did not appear to be impaired so the interaction did not warrant an arrest, according to department records.

But a trooper who questioned Kennedy at the hospital after the crash said he seemed impaired, with body tremors and constricted pupils. Investigators also found a baggie of “crystal-like” substance in Kennedy’s truck that they believed could be meth. He told investigators he takes Adderall and has used meth three days prior to the crash.

With a warrant, investigators took two samples of Kennedy’s blood – first at 7:35 p.m., nearly four hours after the crash, and again at 8:35 p.m.

Nye County District Attorney Chris Arabia said his team has been working for months to gather evidence to support charging Kennedy with DUI resulting in death.

“I’m proud of my team for the work they’ve put in locating and talking to witnesses, reviewing and going over the file again and again, and a lot of other things,” Arabia said in a statement Tuesday. “We have enough now to charge the DUI and take it to a preliminary hearing and then eventually a jury should the prosecution withstand scrutiny at the Justice Court level. If the DUI can be proven, we’ll prove it.”

A preliminary hearing in the case was scheduled for Monday.

Contact Alexis Ford at aford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0335. Follow @alexisdford on Twitter.