Suspect Held On $500K Bail In 6-Year-Old's Death

By Anna Deem in News on Feb 20, 2010 10:00PM

Eddie Lumpkin, 48, an auto mechanic, who was accused of driving drunk on Tuesday when he allegedly hit and killed a 6-year-old girl also admitted to smoking marijuana shortly before the crash, Cook County prosecutors said in court on Friday. Lumpkin's bail was set at $500,000 during the hearing at the 26th and California courthouse.

Steve Greenberg, Lumpkin's attorney, defended his client's actions, saying that evidence will show his client was sober the night of the crash. "As soon as the accident happened, he stopped and tried to help the people who were running across the street through traffic, across the median when they shouldn't have been," Greenberg told reporters after the bond hearing.

Lumpkin was charged with reckless homicide and aggravated DUI. Prosecutors allege that he was speeding south in a Dodge Caravan on Ashland Avenue just north of 74th Street around 6:30 p.m., when he struck first-grader, Jada Washington, and her aunt, Tiuette Richardson, 21, who were both standing in the median. Washington died at the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital and Richardson remains hospitalized and is recovering from her injuries. [Chicago Sun-Times]