A Highland woman now faces criminal charges in a Jan. 30 fatal crash, her second in less than a year.
Lisa Damico, 51, was charged Friday with reckless homicide, a level 5 felony. If convicted, it carries a penalty of 1-6 years in prison.
She was arrested Friday and initially ordered held without bond, according to court records. Her bail was reset to $15,000 cash during her initial court appearance Monday.
Authorities accused her of running a red light just before 9 a.m. on U.S. 41 and Ramblewood Drive, near Meijer in Highland killing Socorro Keresztes, 70, of Munster.
A crash investigator estimated Damico blew through an intersection at 93 mph, according to court records. Police found a “very large debris field.”
Damico was also charged with felony reckless homicide and four misdemeanors last month in an Aug. 18 fatal crash near the Highland Walgreens on Ridge Road and Indianapolis Boulevard that killed Tyler Scheidt, 21, of Highland, who was a pedestrian. She was driving at 85 mph, according to court records.
Scheidt’s parents have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against her.
In both crashes, Damico, who said she has epilepsy, denied she had a seizure, while police found seizure medication in her vehicle, according to court documents. She tested negative both times for drugs or alcohol.
Both crashes were a “sad situation all around,” her lawyer, Michael Campbell, said Monday, offering his condolences to both families. “There’s never an intention to harm anyone.”
He would get her examined to see why she blacked out in both cases and what the underlying medical cause was, he said.
“It’s not like she had a chronic history” of doing so, he said. “Unfortunately, the accidents themselves couldn’t have been more tragic.”
“My client wished they had never happened,” Campbell said.
Damico had admitted Jan. 30 to police she was driving on a suspended license. That was due to the failure to pay a ticket in Porter County, Campbell said.
“Had she not missed court, she would have never been suspended,” he said.
She was originally charged with reckless homicide and driving while suspended in the Jan. 30 crash, but the latter charge was dropped, he noted.
When police were called Jan. 30 to the intersection of Indianapolis Boulevard and Ramblewood Drive, Keresztes’ silver Hyundai was half on the curb near the First Financial Bank sign, while Damico’s blue Volvo was in the Panda Express parking lot, 250 feet across the street, charges state.
Damico agreed to go to Community Hospital in Munster for a toxicology blood draw. The officer who went to her room knew her from the crash that killed Scheidt, he wrote.
She appeared to have “facial” injuries and both ankles were hurt. Damico told him her lawyer said not to talk with investigators.
Earlier at the scene, Damico said she was coming from her boyfriend’s house in Hammond.
“No, no, no, I mean Schererville,” she said.
First, she said she was driving south to Jewel, before telling investigators she drove north to go to Meijer.
Initially, she told officers, who were trying to figure out her name, that she didn’t have a middle name and lived in Chicago. She then admitted she was driving on a suspended license, records state.
She then remembered her middle name and address.
Damico said she “blacked out,” then woke up to see her car was wrecked, not remembering how she crashed, an affidavit states. She thought the damage was only to her car, police wrote.
“I know why I blacked out before the accident,” she told officers. Damico claimed a friend was cheating on her husband and he found out.
“I was thinking and stressing about that,” she claimed.
Unprompted, she later told officers she hadn’t had a seizure in four years and she didn’t have one before the crash, because she “knows what that feels like,” according to charges.
In Damico’s car, officers found a travel bag with clothes and seizure medication, court documents state.
Earlier, witnesses flagged down an officer to Keresztes’ car. The front end was smashed and he couldn’t open the doors to help her, records state.
Witnesses told police Damico’s car weaved in and out of Indianapolis Boulevard before she appeared to go into the east bound turn lane, did not brake before speeding through the red light and slamming into Keresztes’ car.
A witness said she pulled over and held Keresztes’ hand until she died, an affidavit states.
The crash was caught on traffic cameras, records state.
A native of the Philippines, Keresztes, the matriarch of her family, was “gentle, caring, and selfless” and had recently retired in 2020 after working more than 25 years at Franciscan Health, an online fundraising page and her obituary said.
She is survived by an adult daughter and extended relatives.
