Oct 13, 2026

BUNNELL, Fla. (Court TV) — Prosecutors say a woman was screaming and angry before intentionally swerving off the road and into a tree, killing her boyfriend — but her defense says the crash wasn’t her fault.

Leigha Mumby sits in court during jury selection on Oct. 12, 2026. (Court TV)

Leigha Mumby, 25, is charged with reckless driving causing serious bodily injury and vehicular homicide in the death of her boyfriend, Daniel Waterman, 22.

In her opening statement to the jury on Tuesday, Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark said that Waterman suffered serious injuries as a passenger in Mumby’s car on Feb. 9, 2025. The couple had left a Super Bowl party at Waterman’s cousin’s house and were traveling on I-95 northbound at speeds over 100 mph, Clark said. Vehicle data showed that in the 3.5 seconds before the crash, the car was traveling 94 mph and made an “abrupt, left-hand turn at 45 degrees,” sending it into the woods.

Waterman suffered a broken neck that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He fell into a coma, and when he awoke, he could not breathe on his own. Waterman’s death eight months later, on Oct. 8, 2025, was, Clark said, “directly related and caused by this crash.”

In the hours before the crash, prosecutors said, Mumby had spent the day with her best friend, Sarah Stappenbeck, who was also Waterman’s cousin and hosting the Super Bowl party that night. Stappenbeck testified on Tuesday that Mumby announced she had just learned she was pregnant, but also “expressed concerns of Daniel talking to other girls and said that she wasn’t going to let Daniel cheat on her.”

Mumby and Waterman left the Super Bowl party that evening before the game was over, but within 20 minutes of leaving, Mumby called Stappenbeck. “She’s yelling at me,” Stappenbeck said. “She was saying that Daniel was texting another girl and that she was going to bring him back to her house.” Stappenbeck denied hearing Waterman say anything in the background. “I tried to tell them, you know, ‘Get home safe, there’s a lot of cars on the road, it’s the Super Bowl; you guys had a big day today, you guys can just worry about this tomorrow, just, I want you guys to be safe,’ and she just wasn’t listening, wasn’t being rational,” Stappenbeck said. “She just said that ‘You’re taking his side,’ and hung up with me.”

Daniel Waterman lies in a hospital bed after the Feb. 9, 2025, crash. (Waterman family)

Twenty minutes later, Stappenbeck said, Mumby called back, still angry, and said she was bringing Waterman back to the Stappenbeck home. They never arrived — Stappenbeck said the next call she got was from Mumby’s roommate telling her to go to the hospital because there had been an accident.

Clark told the jury that the 45-degree swerve that sent Mumby’s car careening off the road and into the woods was “a dangerous and reckless maneuver,” but Mumby’s defense suggested it wasn’t intentional, calling the case a “pure and utter tragedy.”

“The crux of this trial effectively comes down to one steering wheel input, and ultimately one question,” Mumby’s attorney, Reid Hart, told the jury. “Does it make sense, based on the testimony and evidence that will be presented to you, that Ms. Mumby chose to drive her vehicle in the manner described? Or does it make more sense that something happened within that vehicle that she did not expect, she did not anticipate, and she did not control? And despite her best efforts to avoid that car careening into the woods, once the proverbial wheels were set in motion, there was nothing she could do to stop it.”

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The jury won’t hear about an interview detectives did with Waterman in the ICU before his death, in which he said that “the last thing he remembers before the crash was Leigha told him, ‘I don’t care what happens, you’ll get what you deserve.'” While prosecutors said they’d like to use the statements, the rules of evidence — specifically laws guaranteeing a defendant’s right to cross-examine and confront witnesses — bar prosecutors from introducing them.