BY JOHN PATTERSON
SALISBURY POST

A Richfield teen-ager has been charged with misdemeanor death by vehicle following a traffic accident Monday at the intersection of Jake Alexander Boulevard and East Innes Street that claimed the life of an 84-year-old Rockwell woman.

Jason Michael Miller, 18, allegedly ran a red light at the intersection around 5:30 p.m. Monday. His Dodge pickup truck collided with the passenger side of a Ford Explorer that Neola Cozart was a passenger in.

Cozart, on the way back to her home at The Meadows of Rockwell Retirement Center after eating dinner with her daughter and son-in-law, suffered multiple injuries in the crash and died Monday night at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem.

Several drivers at the intersection told Salisbury Police that the traffic light was red when Miller entered the intersection from Jake Alexander Boulevard. Stephen Whicker, Cozart’s son-in-law and the Explorer’s driver, was heading out of Salisbury on East Innes Street and said he only saw Miller’s truck for a second before the impact.

Miller, contacted at home this morning, said he didn’t want to comment about the wreck. However, a supervisor at Gerry Wood Honda – where Miller works – said Miller was taking the accident very seriously and ‘‘was really shook up about the whole situation.’’

Cozart, who was married to the late Clarence Alexander ‘‘Dolly’’ Cozart, was a member of Ursinus United Church of Christ and had been a resident at The Meadows since July 1996.

Cozart was retired from Cannon Mills and had lived in an apartment and then at The Meadows since her husband, the founder and president of Cozart Lumber Co., died in 1984.