Twenty-six year old Chanel Lafua faces a total of 15 charges in connection with the fatal accident which ended the lives of four male employees of StarKist Samoa early last Saturday morning.
He faces four counts of homicide by vehicle, four counts of driving while under the influence of alcohol causing death, four counts of reckless driving causing bodily injury, third degree assault, felonious restraint-domestic violence and assault in the third degree-domestic violence.
Just after midnight on Friday, December 17, an off duty police officer picked up a you g woman in Faganeanea who reported that she had jumped out of a vehicle in which her aunt and boyfriend were in.
The young woman said her aunt”s boyfriend was driving at a very high speed heading east.
Police later received another call from a female about a vehicle speeding recklessly in the Fagatogo area.
Officers stationed near the Satala cemetery flagged down the speeding car, a white Rav 4.
The vehicle stopped and when police approached they could hear a woman crying and asking for help. But the driver sped off at an accelerated pace and officers who conducted the stop quickly lost sight of it.
Cops got into their vehicles to give chase to the Rav 4 but when they passed the shipyard they sighted a crowd of StarKist employees congregating outside the cannery gate. And they saw the white Rav 4 had crashed into the gate.
The driver of the white Rav 4 that had been speeding was identified as Chanel Lafua and a female passenger was ID’d as Emma Maui’a.
A female employee who witnessed what happened said they were taking a break in front of the the cannery when they sighted a vehicle traveling at a very high speed. Police said they observed beer cans surrounding the vehicle.
Also identified were four fatalities at the crash site: Faasaulala Ahoni, Ierome Vili, Alatina Faleasi and Taumaoe Olive.
Ahoni and Olive were passengers in a vehicle that was leaving the cannery when it was struck by the Rav 4.
The driver of that vehicle escaped with minor injuries. Vili and Faleasi were fatally struck by the Rav 4 after it ran off the road into the cannery gate.
The woman whom the off duty police officer had picked up earlier, a niece of Lafua’s girl friend, Emma Maui’a said there was an argument between her aunt and Lafua while they were on the road earlier that night.
She said at the airport intersection, Lafua made a sudden turn which nearly caused the Rav 4 to roll over.
The two women begged him to slow down but he ignored them. And instead of taking them to Faleniu where they lived, he drove east.
The niece said around Avau, her aunt tried to jump out but Lafua pulled her back in by yanking her hair and restraining her.
She said she tried to fight off Lafua but he yanked her hair too. At that point the car was moving at a slow pace and she managed to get out.
Bail for Lafua is set at $75,000.
