Driver's Rampage Causes 15 Wrecks, One Fatality

This article originated on Snellville Patch

Snellville and Gwinnett County Police responded to a devastating scene late Wednesday night, Jan. 23, after an alleged drunk driver caused a total of 15 accidents stretching from Memorial Drive in DeKalb to Walton Court in Snellville.

According to Gwinnett Police Cpl. Jake Smith, the driver ended his rampage when he crashed into John Boy's restaurant on Highway 78. The last crash, on Walton, resulted in a fatality. 

Snellville Police were out in the area serving warrants; the driver nearly hit an officer's vehicle on Hewatt Road before causing the fatality on Walton. The driver, driving a large truck, attempted to flee the scene but Snellville Police were able to detain him. 

The Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department website shows that Michael Owen Snider, of Stone Mountain, was booked three minutes past midnight on Jan. 24 for DUI - alcohol, following too closely, reckless driving, vehicular homicide and serious injury by vehicle. 

According to 11Alive, the driver, a 70-year-old man, may have been intentially trying to hit vehicles. 

"I was at the light over there and I looked in my rear view and I saw this big pickup truck like a Ford F-350 or something like that," driver Dennis Brown told 11Alive. ""He intentionally tried to hit me so that's when he chased me, literally he chased me, on the road. It was like a video game. Really, I couldn't believe he was trying to do that." 

He also hit the vehicle of Jenetta and Manuel Johnson, according to CBS News. The couple also alleged that the ramming was intentional. 

"I just thought we were going to die. I just knew he was going to kill us. He would not stop hitting us," Jenetta Johnson told CBS. "He was just ramming us and ramming us, and then he hit the gas and went around."

Her husband, Manuel, said he thought the driver would go around them, but then hit them "again and again."

"My neck hurts and my back hurts pretty good," said Manuel Johnson.

The name of the final victim, a woman believed to be in her 60s, has not been released.