Juvenile charged with reckless homicide in fatal Elk Grove crash

The underage driver faces reckless homicide and other charges stemming from last month’s crash in Elk Grove Village that killed a 45-year-old Des Plaines woman on her way home from work.

The unnamed teenager was driving at excessive speed and did not have his headlights on when two vehicles collided at the intersection of Meacham and Biesterfield roads on May 28 around 11:29 p.m., according to defendants.

Authorities said the juvenile was driving a Lexus sedan north on Meacham when it ran a red light and collided with a Honda SUV driven east on Biesterfield by Andrea Garcia of Des Plaines.

Garcia, a mother of five, was taken from the scene and taken to Ascension Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, where she was pronounced dead, police said.

Authorities said the juvenile, along with an adult and two minor passengers, suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the crash.

In addition to reckless homicide, which is a Class 3 felony, the juvenile is charged with aggravated speeding, failure to obey a traffic signal, illegal concealment of registration and driving without high beams, Elk Grove Village police announced Monday.

Police said the case will be reviewed by the Cook County Division of Juvenile Justice.

A spokeswoman for Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 confirmed last month that two of the people in the Lexus were recent graduates of Conant High School in Hoffman Estates and the other two were current Conant students.

Andrea Garcia
Courtesy of Adolfo Jimenez