GASTON COUNTY, N.C.,None — Police charged 28-year-old Howard Pasour with second-degree murder in a crash that killed 17-year-old Laura Fortenberry.
Pasour is also charged with DWI in the crash. It's his fourth DWI charge.
Troopers said Pasour crossed the center line on Dallas-Cherry Highway, near the intersection of White Jenkins Road, on Sunday night and slammed into an Oldsmobile with three teenagers inside.
Fortenberry, a 2010 North Gaston High graduate, was a passenger in the front seat of the car, which was driven by a 19-year-old girl from Bessemer City, according to the Highway Patrol.
Another teenage passenger was seriously injured in the crash.
Pasour was traveling at least 60 mph, troopers said, and the teens were traveling at about 45 mph.
He took the only thing I had left in my life away," Fortenberry's mother, Michelle Armstrong, said.
Armstrong said Fortenberry called her on Sunday before they left Bessemer City.
"She said, ‘I love you.' I said, ‘I love you,'" Armstrong said. "Then when she wasn't home at 9:30 p.m., I knew something was wrong."
Troopers said Pasour had been drinking and was weaving through traffic.
The vehicles collided in front of Brenda Free's home. She said she talked to the other teenage passenger, who was injured in the crash.
"He was saying, ‘Oh my God, oh my God,'" she said. "He wanted to know if his friend was dead."
Pasour, who got out of the hospital Monday morning, doesn't have a license. It was revoked after his last DWI conviction.
"He shouldn't have been on the road," Armstrong said. "He shouldn't have been able to kill my daughter. I mean, how many times are you going to give him a chance to get on the road."
Pasour was charged with DWI once in 2003 and twice in May 2008. He was convicted all three times and his license was revoked. He was also given a 37-day active sentence.
Last April, he was charged with driving without a license.
"I don't understand why he was behind the wheel of a car," Armstrong said. "It just don't make sense."