Six Deaths. Three Hours. Six Guilty Verdicts

Empty wooden jury box with numbered chairs — Photo: Crazy City Lady / Shutterstock

A Los Angeles jury rejected a seizure defense and convicted traveling nurse Nicole Linton of murder for a 130 mph crash that wiped out six lives, including an unborn baby.

Story Snapshot

Nicole Linton, 39, found guilty Friday on six counts of second-degree murder in the August 2022 Windsor Hills crash.
Prosecutors showed telemetry data putting her Mercedes-Benz at 122 mph five seconds before impact and 130 mph at collision, with no braking.
Victims included a pregnant woman, Asherey Ryan, her unborn son, and her boyfriend Reynold Lester, 24.
The defense argued Linton suffered a seizure and lost consciousness, but jurors sided with prosecutors.
The case fits California’s decades-old “Watson murder” rule allowing murder charges for extreme, reckless driving.

Jury Rejects Seizure Claim, Convicts on All Counts

A downtown Los Angeles jury convicted Nicole Linton on Friday of six counts of second-degree murder for a horrific crash that killed six people in the Windsor Hills neighborhood in August 2022. Prosecutors said Linton gunned her Mercedes-Benz through a red light at the intersection of La Brea and Slauson avenues, slamming into a Jaguar and killing everyone inside.

Deputy District Attorney Brittany Vannoy told jurors during opening statements that Linton “chose to drive at 130 miles per hour” and “chose to drive through that red light,” flooring it the entire way. Prosecutors relied on vehicle data showing Linton hit 122 mph five seconds before the crash and 130 mph at impact, with no evidence she ever braked or swerved. That data became the backbone of the state’s case.

Victims Included a Pregnant Mother and Her Unborn Son

The crash killed Asherey Ryan and her unborn child, along with her boyfriend Reynold Lester, 24, and three other people in the vehicle. Surveillance video played for jurors reportedly showed a baby thrown from the wreckage, and grieving family members walked out of the courtroom in tears during the graphic evidence. Prosecutors said Linton had been angry after leaving her job at a hospital and channeled that rage into her driving.

Defense Argued Medical Emergency, Not Murder

Defense attorney Jovan Blacknell insisted Linton suffered a sudden seizure and had zero control over the car in her final moments. He told jurors Linton was “in no way angry or rageful” and had been driving “perfectly normal” right up until the crash. “She did not know that she was going to have a seizure,” Blacknell argued. “Sometimes a medical emergency occurs while someone’s driving. That’s not murder”.

A defense neurologist, Dr. David Millett, testified he believed Linton “likely suffered a seizure,” pointing to an image of her arm hanging rigidly out the driver’s window as consistent with a seizure rather than someone gripping a phone. But under cross-examination, Millett admitted he was initially troubled by how precisely Linton had managed to navigate the road before the crash. Prosecutors hammered that inconsistency hard.

No Drugs, No Phone, But Jury Still Sees Murder

The defense also stressed there was no evidence Linton was drunk, high, texting, racing, or fighting with anyone when the crash happened. For conservative readers who believe in personal accountability, that detail matters less than the outcome: a jury weighed the medical claim against hard telemetry data and sided with the victims. California prosecutors argued a psychiatric evaluation found no sign Linton actually had a seizure that day.

This conviction did not happen in a legal vacuum. California has used so-called “Watson murder” rules since a 1981 state Supreme Court case allowed second-degree murder charges when reckless driving shows a conscious disregard for human life, not just ordinary negligence. That standard has been applied in other extreme-speed cases, including a recent Malibu crash that killed four sorority sisters. It gives prosecutors a real tool against drivers who treat public roads like a racetrack.

Victims’ families react after a jury found 39-year-old Nicole Linton guilty of second-degree murder on Friday in connection with the 2022 Windsor Hills crash that killed six people, including a mother and her unborn child. https://t.co/Ld1qX9dLe3 pic.twitter.com/vePTk83n0L

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) October 3, 2026

Linton was initially charged with six counts of murder plus five counts of vehicular manslaughter, but prosecutors dropped the lesser charges before trial, betting everything on the murder counts. That gamble paid off. The verdict sends a clear message that reckless, high-speed driving resulting in mass casualties will be treated as murder in California courts, not dismissed as a tragic accident with no accountability attached.