Reckless Rage Or Medical Emergency?

Judge with gavel striking sound block — Photo: Nuttapong punna / Shutterstock

A Los Angeles jury convicted a traveling nurse of murdering six people after she blew through a red light at 130 miles an hour, rejecting her claim that a sudden seizure took the wheel out of her hands.

Story Snapshot

Nicole Linton, 39, was found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder for the August 2022 Windsor Hills crash.
Prosecutors say she hit 130 miles per hour and ran a red light without braking or swerving.
Her defense argued a seizure caused her to lose control, but the jury rejected that claim.
The case rested on a California murder law built for reckless drivers who show total disregard for human life.

Deadly Crash Killed a Pregnant Mother and Her Unborn Son

The crash happened August 4, 2022, at the intersection of La Brea and Slauson avenues in South Los Angeles. Linton’s Mercedes-Benz slammed into a Jaguar carrying a family on their way to a birthday party. Surveillance video, played for jurors, showed an infant ejected onto the road during the collision. Six people died, including a pregnant woman and her unborn child.

Family members of the victims left the courtroom in tears when prosecutors showed images from the crash during opening statements. Deputy District Attorney Brittany Vannoy opened her case by telling jurors bluntly, “the defendant killed six people,” before playing the surveillance footage of the collision.

Prosecutors Say She Had Time to Stop and Chose Not To

Prosecutors told jurors Linton was leaving her shift at a Kaiser Permanente hospital and was angry when she got behind the wheel. They argued she consciously channeled that anger into her driving instead of pulling over. Vehicle data showed her Mercedes hit 122 miles per hour five seconds before impact and reached 130 by the time she struck the other car, with no sign of braking.

Vannoy told the jury Linton “chose to drive at 130 miles per hour” and “chose to drive through that red light,” flooring the accelerator the entire time. She argued Linton had plenty of chances to stop, brake, or swerve and simply did not. Prosecutors also presented a psychiatric evaluation they said showed no sign Linton had suffered a seizure that day.

Defense Blamed a Seizure, Jury Didn’t Buy It

Linton’s attorney, Jovan Blacknell, told jurors his client was “in no way angry or rageful” and had been driving normally after leaving work. He said a neurologist who examined Linton believed she “likely suffered a seizure” behind the wheel and lost conscious control of the car. He pointed to a video image of Linton’s arm outside the window, arguing it looked like a rigid limb from a seizure rather than someone holding a phone.

Blacknell insisted Linton never knew a seizure was coming and said a medical emergency during driving should not count as murder. He also noted there was no evidence she was drunk, on drugs, texting, racing, or fighting with anyone when the crash happened. Linton did not testify in her own defense before the case went to the jury.

California’s ‘Watson Murder’ Law at Work

The jury ultimately sided with prosecutors, convicting Linton on all six counts of second-degree murder Friday after deliberations. The case leaned on a decades-old California precedent known as the “Watson murder” rule, from a 1981 state Supreme Court case involving a drunk driver going 84 miles per hour in a 35 zone. That ruling lets prosecutors charge murder, not just manslaughter, when a driver’s conduct shows a conscious disregard for human life.

This case is a reminder that reckless driving at extreme speeds carries real consequences under the law, not just a slap on the wrist. A jury of everyday Americans looked at the evidence, weighed a medical defense, and still held Linton fully accountable for six lost lives. That outcome reflects a justice system working as it should, putting victims and public safety ahead of excuses.

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 originally faced five additional counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, but prosecutors dropped those charges before trial began, choosing to pursue the more serious murder counts instead. Her sentencing will determine how many years she spends behind bars for a crash that wiped out an entire family’s future in a matter of seconds.