Bethany Walters and Emma Bridgman were great friends.
The Tallassee girls were almost inseparable. They went everywhere together.
The day after Christmas two years ago, the girls went to Montgomery for the day. They got their hair done. They shopped and tried on clothes. They ate sushi at Kabuki, a favorite, before heading home. Walters drove her 2014 white Honda Accord first down Interstate 85 and then north on Highway 229. Bridgman was in the passenger seat. Just as they crossed into Elmore County something happened. Megan Gray was traveling south on the road towards the girls. Gray’s daughters were in the car with her.
“We saw headlights spinning in front of us,” Gray said.
They had come upon a crash. Gray stopped and sprang into action. She ran to the white Honda Accord in the grass off the road.
“I saw Emma sitting on the ground,” Gray said.
Gray’s daughters and Walters were in dance together.
“Once at a dance competition, one of my girls was hurt,” Gray said. “Bethany carried her up and down the stairs on her back to help make it easier for her.”
Gray said she never forgot what Bethany did for her girls at the competition.
“She was a role model,” Gray said.
The day of the crash, she was looking closer at the driver, Gray recognized Walters.
“It was a momma’s worst nightmare,” Gray said. “I jumped in the passenger side. I screamed for Emma to call Bethany’s mother and tell her Bethany has been in a bad wreck.”
Gray moved to the back seat to better be able to hold Walters’ head still.
“She never opened her eyes,” Gray said. “She moaned a lot. Bethany asked for her dad. All I could tell her was, ‘He is coming.’”
Traveling southbound on Highway 229 in front of Gray was Yolanda Hurst, 45, of Montgomery. She stayed with her son Marquez Hurst who lived in Tallasssee and was in the passenger seat. They were on their way to visit a 14-year-old family member who had been shot in the head in Montgomery. He was at Baptist South.
“I remember a loud boom and my car spinning,” Yolanda Hurst said. “The loud boom must have been a crash. I was trying to hold the car from going into the ditch.”
Hurst’s car stops in the middle of the roadway. She was groggy and in pain.
“I kept calling, ‘Marquez, Marquez,’” Hurst said. “He finally got up. He was staggering.”
The mother and son got out of the car as it burst into flames.
The two cars were more than 200 feet apart.
Walters died as a result of the crash. Bridgman and the Hursts were injured. Bridgman had lacerations. Yolanda Hurst had lacerations and broken bones including a collar bone. Marquez Hurst had an orbital fracture and lacerations to his face. A medical examiner testified Walters had bleeding from the ears signaling skull fractures. She also had multiple broken ribs with blood and fluid in her chest cavity. Bethany’s right ankle was dislocated and her left leg was severely wounded. The cause of Walters’ death was determined as multiple blunt force trauma.
The story of the crash played out in an Elmore County Judicial Complex courtroom this week.
Yolanda Hurst was being tried in criminal court for multiple counts including criminally negligent homicide.
Law enforcement testified Hurst never had a driver’s license but had been driving since she was 14. In fact she had several traffic tickets — enough that the state revoked her ability to ever get a driver’s license.
But Hurst was still at the wheel on Dec. 26, 2022 during a collision with Walters.
“If I could have (gotten a driver’s license), I would,” Hurst testified. “I couldn’t get it. I couldn’t read.”
Law enforcement measured the accident scene and used computer software to recreate it. It was estimated Hurst was driving between 74 and 85 MPH at the time of the collision. It was an estimate Hurst disagreed with.
“I was going about 40,” Hurst told law enforcement the night of the crash. “My car, it always picks up speed.”
Walters was likely traveling between 50 and 60 MPH, law enforcement said.
Neither appeared to have hit their brakes as Hurst crossed the centerline and struck Walters’ car in the northbound lane. The cars were so severely damaged law enforcement said data couldn’t be retrieved from the vehicles’ black boxes.
First responders soon arrived and relieved Gray in the back seat.
“I had to get back to my kids in the car,” Gray said while holding back tears. “They were crying.”
Gray hugged Bethany’s parents Dana and Doug as she left the courtroom.
“She never got off the ambulance alive,” Doug testified. “We saw the ambulance rocking. We knew they were doing CPR. I can remember them pulling her off the ambulance doing CPR. I yelled at her to fight. We never saw her alive.”
The information surrounding the death was collected by law enforcement and the 19th Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office.
“It was presented to a grand jury as part of a death investigation,” district attorney C.J. Robinson said. “They recommended the misdemeanor charge of criminally negligent homicide.”
Yolanda Hurst was charged with criminally negligent homicide, reckless driving, improper lane usage, driving while license was revoked, driving without insurance, speeding and two counts of third-degree assault — one for Bridgman and one for Marquez Hurst.
Yolanda Hurst was found guilty by Elmore County District Court Judge Glen Goggans and sentenced to the maximum misdemeanor crime sentence of one year in jail. Hurst appealed the conviction. The appeal led to this week’s jury proceedings.
It took about an hour for the jury to find Hurst guilty on all counts except the third-degree assault against her son. She is due back in court March 3 for sentencing by Judge Joy Booth. Hurst faces a maximum sentence of one year in jail for the criminally negligent homicide.
From the stand Hurst spoke to the Walters family.
“I’m not a bad person,” Hurst said. “I wouldn’t hurt a fly. I want to tell y’all I’m sorry. I ask for your forgiveness.”
But Doug still remembers his 17-year-old daughter who was “full of life” and graduated early from Tallassee High School just a couple weeks before the crash. Bethany was set to start nursing school in August 2023.
“She always had your back,” Doug said. “She was a competitive dancer and, boy, could she light up a stage.”
