A 46-year-old woman was allegedly under the influence of a cocktail of drugs when she fatally struck a man with her car in March while he was fixing a flat tire in Austin, according to prosecutors.
Lisa Torres-Binder, charged with aggravated DUI causing death, allegedly had heroin, codeine, fentanyl, morphine, norfentanyl and sertraline in her system as she drove a minivan March 28 in the 1300 block of North Laramie Avenue, Cook County prosecutors said.
About 6:50 p.m. that day, Jose Felix Sanchez Leon, 44, had been delivering food when he noticed that one of his tires was flat, prosecutors said. He parked his Mazda 3 on the west side of Laramie to change it.
As he worked on his tire, Torres-Binder crashed her mini-van into the back of the Mazda with such force that the minivan’s air bags deployed, prosecutors said. She then struck Leon, throwing him 10 feet and onto a white van that was parked in front of his car.
Leon slammed into the back of the van and hit his head on the ground when he landed, causing massive trauma to his head, prosecutors said. Torres-Binder continued driving and struck five more vehicles before coming to a stop.
She stepped out of the minivan and paced beside the car before Cook County sheriff’s police arrived and took her to a hospital, where she allegedly admitted to snorting heroin and submitted a urine test which detected the other drugs, prosecutors said.
Leon died of multiple blunt force injuries from the collision. Records show Torres-Binder was driving 37 mph in a 30 mph zone when she slammed into his car and didn’t apply the brakes at the time of the crash, prosecutors said.
Torres-Binder was interviewed again Aug. 3 and again admitted to using heroin the day of the incident and driving at the time, prosecutors said. She doesn’t have a valid driver’s license or insurance.
She was ordered held on $100,000 bail and is expected to appear in court again Dec. 2.
