Driver who killed teen posts Facebook pic of wreck, with smiley face
A Minnesota man who smashed into two vehicles, police say, took to Facebook to laugh about it. He reportedly has many driving violations and no valid license.
If you had been in a car crash, totalling the other person's car, then driven on, hitting another car and totalling that one too, what would your first instinct be?
I fancy it wouldn't be to post a Facebook picture of your car, with severe damage, and accompany it with the caption: "That's her front end after I got done with her lol." You surely wouldn't add a smiley face at the end either.
Yet this is what police say Michael J. Vanwagner of Coon Rapids, Minn. did on July 26.
The worst was yet to come. In the second car was 16-year-old Jason McCarthy. He subsequently died from his injuries.
As the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports, 24-year-old Vanwagner admits to posting the image and caption. Moreover, he posted a second image to Facebook, with the message: "I'm all good slept a day in the hospital then came home and did yard work lol."
Vanwagner told the Star-Tribune that he wasn't aware he'd hit anybody, insisting: "I just thought I hit something."
He added: "I know I'm looking at spending time in prison, so I'm trying to spend as much time as I can with my 18-month-old."
It seems like grotesquely ill-judged behavior that Vanwagner would choose to post such images and captions, even if he hadn't been aware he'd caused a death.
It seems even more so because police say he was driving on an invalid license. He also reportedly has many driving violations, including twice driving on a suspended license.
Police are also investigating whether he might have been intoxicated.
Meanwhile, McCarthy's family mourns their son.