Extreme Road Rage Kills 26-Year-Old Woman, Man Charged - 'He Knew What He Was Doing'
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
A 26-year-old Massachusetts woman who was the apparent victim of a road rage incident died.
Destini Decoff, 26, was critically injured on April 4, according to WCVB-TV.
Decoff’s mother, Tracy Decoff, said her daughter died from her injuries on April 6, according to WBTS-CD.
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Hopkinton Chief of Police Joseph Bennett said Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford has been charged in connection with the incident, according to a news release on Ryan’s website.
Sweatt faces charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, operating to endanger and a marked lanes violation.
Destini Decoff, woman run down in Hopkinton during apparent road rage attack, dies https://t.co/a5eCkJ6cSM
— WBZ | CBS News Boston (@wbz) April 7, 2024
The release said during the incident, some of the occupants of the vehicle in which Decoff was riding left their vehicle.
The release said Sweatt “made a U-turn at a high rate of speed.” Decoff was then hit in the roadway.
Sweatt told police the other car slammed on its brakes in front of him, according to CBS.
He also claimed four people and Decoff emerged from the car to threaten him.
Police said surveillance video did not support his claims.
“Not the way he turned around multiple times, and he coulda just kept going,” witness Brett Martin said, according to WCVB. “He chose to turn around, chose to come back. He knew what he was doing when he went towards that girl.”
Sweatt was being held without bail until a dangerousness hearing on April 10, CBS reported. There have been no updates on whether he has been released since that hearing.
“With every ounce of my being I hope that mf burns directly in hell!” Tracy Decoff posted on Facebook.
In her initial post before her daughter died, she said he daughter was “literally injured from head to toe. she had a brain bleed so to relieve pressure they had to remove part of her skull. She was also bleeding internally. Plastic surgeon had to put her lip & chin back together. She has broken teeth, 1 of which landed in her lung. Broken shoulder, broken ribs, broken tibia that is putting pressure on the blood vessels around it. She has both collapsed lungs & her spleen had to be removed. She is on a breathing machine & hasn’t moved a limb since it happened,” she wrote.
She posted on Facebook the next day that “my biggest fear as a mother became my reality. My first born child & best friend is no longer with me.”
She added a message to her daughter: “you know I don’t break promises & i promise you with every ounce of my being I will get justice for you regardless of what it takes!”
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