Trooper: Investigation into fatal weekend crash still ongoing

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, April 14, 2015

By Shavonne Walker

shavonne.walker@salisburypost.com

Investigators are still looking into a Saturday night crash that took the life of a Mooresville man and left his girlfriend behind bars and facing a felony charge.

N.C. Trooper C.K. Ridenhour said on Monday that they are still investigating the single-vehicle crash that occurred at 11:19 p.m.

Erica Kristen McCarter, 23, of the 100 block of Field Crest Drive, Statesville, was charged with aggravated felony death by vehicle, driving while impaired and careless and reckless driving. Her passenger, Devin Joseph Dimisa, 26, from Mooresville, who was McCarter’s boyfriend, died at the scene.

He was not wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the Nissan Maxima after it ran off the right side of the road and overturned. Trooper Ridenhour said McCarter struck a mailbox and the vehicle came to rest upright. She was wearing a seat belt.

Officials obtained her blood alcohol content after a blood test at the hospital and are awaiting results, which could take weeks.

Reports say McCarter was unsteady on her feet when they arrived and she did not perform well on sobriety tests. She told troopers she’d taken Norco, a pain reliever earlier that evening, a Xanax a few hours later and drank “one or two” beers sometime before the crash.

McCarter was convicted in Guilford County of impaired driving and has a pending driving while impaired case in Iredell County. In the Iredell incident, authorities charged McCarter with driving left of center, hit and run and driving while impaired. Authorities in that incident said she failed to stop to notify authorities of property damage.

She is currently on two years probation for a conviction last month for larceny and breaking and entering, both of which are misdemeanors.

McCarter remains jailed under a $100,000 secured bond.

Contact reporter Shavonne Walker at 704-797-4253.