The longhaul trucker police say was responsible for a crash in January that sent a car plummeting off the Cheat Lake Bridge is now awaiting his sentence – after his plea of guilty to a charge of vehicular homicide.
Sukhjinder Singh, 37, of New York, entered that plea in Monongalia County Magistrate Court on Monday for his role in the Jan. 19 wreck that killed Kevin Lataille.
He could face a year in prison for his plea, which was part of an agreement. Details of that agreement weren’t immediately available.
Singh’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Monday.
Eyewitnesses said he had actually been involved in a series of collisions on Interstate 68 that afternoon. It was snowing heavily, and visibility was limited.
Mon Sheriff Todd Forbes and other deputies were also able to view doorcam video from a nearby homeowner showing the rig sliding and kicking up snow on the span.
A car – Laitaille’s – could be seen going off the side of the bridge in the video, the sheriff said.
The suspect was arrested in California, where he had been employed by an interstate transport company.
Speaking through an interpreter, Singh told deputies at the scene he had been behind the wheel of his then-jackknifed truck – though he initially denied striking any other vehicles on the bridge.
Lataille was a 59-year-old Rhode Island native who relocated to Smithfield, Pa., after a stint in the U.S. Navy. He had been working at the Patteson Drive Eat ‘n Park.
He was well-liked, and several of his friends searched for him on foot, in extreme conditions, in the hours and days after he failed to return home.
Lataille made sure to call his wife, Lisa, at the end of his shift, because he knew she would be fretting about the weather.
“Hey, I’m leaving,” she remembered him telling her. In turn, she told him to be careful.
After another call from the road, she never heard from him again.
“It was like he disappeared,” she said.
Drone footage would reveal a car under the frozen surface of the lake.
On Jan. 26, exactly one week later, and with the help of multiple recovery crews from Mon County and neighboring Pennsylvania, Lataille’s car was freed from the ice and hoisted by crane, some 80 feet back up to the bridge roadway.
He was still in the driver’s seat, still wearing his seatbelt.
Around three months following the accident, family members hired Morgantown attorney Dino Colombo to bring a lawsuit, which “was successfully resolved,” he said.
“I can’t talk about the settlement because it’s confidential,” he said. “I can tell you the family was pleased, and we were honored to serve them.”
