Nyra Whitelow is accused in a crash that killed Audrey Hensley and her dog in Michigan in November 2023. (Crime scene and mug shot screenshots via WWMT-TV/YouTube; victim’s photo from her obituary)
A Michigan woman faces charges in a crash at nearly 100 mph in a 45 mph zone that killed a 22-year-old woman and her dog and critically injured her boyfriend during a Thanksgiving holiday visit with family.
Nyra Whitelow, 23, is accused in the crash that killed Audrey Hensley. She faces charges of second-degree murder and reckless driving, causing serious impairment of body function. She was free on a $50,000 bond with a court date set for April 26, online court records show.
“There is tremendous loss, for the loved ones, the family there is loss to the community,” Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting said, local CBS affiliate WWMT reported. “We end up charging reckless driving causing serious injury, but that hardly seems sufficient when someone has had these life-altering injuries and is going to be dealing with the impact not for just the next few months but for the rest of their lives. Not only are they doing something that they know or should know is dangerous for someone else … but it’s so dangerous that the likelihood of those actions is that someone is going to be severely hurt or killed.”
The three-vehicle crash happened on Nov. 24, 2023, in Kalamazoo, in southwest Michigan. Whitelow’s Dodge Charger attained speeds of nearly 100 mph within five seconds of the crash and slowed to 86 mph just before impact, local MLive Media Group news outlet reported, citing a probable cause affidavit by Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety Detective Tim Knight.
“Upon an interview with the at-fault driver Nyra Whitelow, she informed she was running late to drop off items to a friend at Bronson Hospital, which was why she was speeding,” a detective wrote in the document, the news outlet reported.
The officer wrote the defendant “disregarded everyone else’s safety” by traveling at an “extremely excessive speed.”
Hensley graduated from Michigan State University and was working to get her master’s degree in dietetics at Ball State University at the time of her death, her obituary said.
“We were blessed to have spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with them and we will cherish that last holiday with her forever,” her mother wrote on Facebook, accompanying the last picture they took together from a walk on Thanksgiving morning and the family Christmas tree. “Our tree can flip to colored lights with the push of a button,” her mother wrote. “Right before Audrey and Gavin left yesterday she flipped it to colored to see if I would notice. 30 minutes later she was gone. 30 minutes. I noticed, baby girl, and I’m leaving them. Maybe forever. Mommy loves you, Audrey, and I’ll miss you until we meet again.”
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