Teens Charged With Murder After Dropping Sandbag off Overpass

Four Ohio teenagers were charged with murder after throwing a sandbag from an overpass, leaving a Michigan man dead.

On Tuesday, Toledo police filed murder charges against Pedro Salinas, 13, Sean Carter, 14, Demetrius Wimberly, 14, and William Parker, 15, following the death of 22-year-old Marquise Byrd, The Toledo Blade reports. The teens are also charged with vehicular vandalism.

On Dec. 19, Byrd was travelling southbound on Interstate 75 to meet friends when he was struck by a sandbag tossed near the Indiana Street overpass in Toledo, Ohio. The sandbag crashed through the windshield and struck the 22-year-old in the head. He was treated at the scene and rushed to a local hospital, where he had been listed in critical condition.

On Friday, Byrd, who is from Warren, Michigan, was pronounced dead. An autopsy concluded that he had died from blunt-force trauma to the head and neck.

It is alleged that Byrd was engaged and had a 1-year-old son.

The four teens had originally been arrested and booked at the Lucas County Juvenile Detention Center on charges of felonious assault, but Byrd’s death prompted the charges to be upgraded to homicide.

While Ohio law allows children as young as 14 to stand trial as adults, Lori Olender, deputy chief of the county’s juvenile division, is not seeking to transfer the teenagers’ cases to adult jurisdiction as they have “almost no record.”