Critical After February Crash, Daniel Waterman, 22, Died on Oct. 8. His Pregnant Girlfriend Is Accused of Causing the Crash.

The morning of February 9–Super Bowl Sunday–Leigha Mumby, 24, discovered she was pregnant by her boyfriend, Daniel M. Waterman, 22. It wasn’t planned, and the on-off relationship hadn’t been of long date. 

The couple spent the day together at the shore in Flagler Beach with Waterman’s cousins, then at his cousins’ house in Palm Coast’s B-Section to watch the Super Bowl. They left to go home to Flagler Beach before the end of the game. 

They never made it. 

Mumby, who drove a white 2019 Honda Passport, crashed into a tree driving north on I-95, just south of the Matanzas Woods Parkway interchange. No other vehicle was involved. She’d gone as fast as 95 mph moments before the crash, and intentionally swerved off the road, according to police. She and Waterman were severely injured, Waterman critically so. The brunt of the impact had been on the right-front passenger side of the Honda. Flagler County Fire Rescue had to extract them both. 

Waterman was in a coma for months. Mumby told a Florida Highway Patrol investigator she could not remember what happened. 

An investigator’s interview with Waterman when he woke up in May–Waterman used a letter board since he could still not speak–and a reconstruction of the crash based on vehicle computer data, led the Florida Highway Patrol to accuse Mumby of intentionally causing the crash. 

In July, Mumby was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon (the car), a second-degree felony, and reckless driving causing serious bodily injury, a third-degree felony. She was booked at the Flagler County jail and released on $25,000 bond. The combined charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. 

Waterman, whose family lives in Liverpool, N.Y., a suburb of Syracuse, never recovered from his injuries and never left hospital beds. “He would spend months on end in Halifax Hospital in Daytona Beach,” his cousin Jessica Stappenbeck wrote FlaglerLive, “with his mom (Heather Waterman), Tiffany Waterman, and his grandparents Michael Gilman and Crystal W Waterman taking turns making the journey to be with him 24 hrs a day in the ICU.” His Florida bills alone ran up to $2 million before he was flown to SUNY Upstate Medical University Hospital in Syracuse by medical transport. 

He died on Oct. 8 of pneumonia. 

The charges against Mumby haven’t changed. For a time, some members of Waterman’s family worried that with him gone, the charges would be dropped. The family members include Stappenbeck, who, along with her sister Sarah, was with the couple that entire last day and evening, and who was the last person to speak to Mumby by phone almost immediately before the crash. 

“That’s not going to happen,” Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark said of the charges supposedly being dropped. While the State Attorney’s Office does not disclose its steps until published in the court docket or in court proceedings, the reverse may be ahead: the charges are likelier to be aggravated. Clark, who only handles major cases, was assigned the Mumby case last week, which until then had been handled by Assistant State Attorney Tara Libby, who generally tries lesser felonies. 

Stappenbeck is somehow not on the prosecution’s witness lists. In an interview, Stappenbeck recalled Super Bowl Sunday. Mumby and Waterman were “the two people that I care about most,” she said. She considered Mumby her best friend at the time. After her positive pregnancy test that morning, Mumby was happy and intent on having the baby. Waterman was not so sure. “My cousin was like, oh my god, what am I gonna do?” Stappenbeck said. She advised the couple to calm down, telling them they had time to decide. 

They went to the beach, then to Stappenbeck’s place for the game. The couple wasn’t arguing. But Waterman was withdrawn. “They were cordial, except you could tell something was going on between the two of them on the side. Daniel was kind of quiet,” Stappenbeck said. During the game they were sitting close together, each on their phone. 

When Mumby and Waterman left toward the end of the game, Mumby drove to Matanzas Woods Parkway, then to I-95 south, down to the Palm Coast Parkway interchange, turned around, and drove back north, it’s not clear why. The crash occurred between the two exits, at mile marker 291. 

“She called me about 10 minutes after they left, screaming about how my cousin was texting another girl, and this was ridiculous,”  Stappenbeck said. “And I said, you know, again, trying to play both sides, not be biased on either side that, you know, it’s a busy day on football Sunday, you guys can worry about this tomorrow. A lot was going on today. She’s saying that I was picking sides, and she just escalated the situation and hung up on me. And then she ended up turning around at the next off-ramp and then calling me back about 10 minutes, five minutes later, and she was just very hysterical again, screaming at me, telling me like how my cousin is, and I’m just trying to de-escalate the situation before she abruptly hung up the phone. And then right after that, the crash happened.”

FHP Investigator Darin Harper determined that Mumby intentionally swerved off the road to crash the car. 

According to FHP’s data harvested from the car computer, the Honda was going “steadily at around 93-95 miles per hour 3-5 seconds prior to the crash.” The accelerator increased four seconds before the crash (the emphasis is in the investigative report), which related, with capital letters: “The brakes WERE NOT APPLIED, ABS WAS INACTIVE and STABILITY CONTROL WAS NOT ENGAGED.” (The anti-lock braking system, or ABS, helps prevent wheels from locking during hard braking.)

The report goes on to note “A notable steering input of 45 degrees (right) at 3.5 seconds prior to the crash, followed by a sudden left input of -30 degrees at 3 seconds prior to the crash,” and braking initiated two seconds before the crash as the vehicle went from 93 mph to 52 mph at the moment of impact. “Significant steering input reflects aggressive maneuvering,” the report states. “RPM rises from 2,200 to 3,100 RPM 2.5 seconds prior to the crash, suggesting acceleration or high engine load before dropping rapidly as braking takes over.” (RPM is the engine’s revolutions per minute.) 

At the impact point, the report states, brakes were off, steering was at 175 degrees, “indicating a hard turn right.” 

Waterman sustained a list of life-threatening injuries– “Cervical spine injury, Clavicle fracture, Femur fracture, Hip dislocation, Epidural Hematoma, Pneumothorax with pulmonary contusion, Zygomatic and temporal contusion, Talus fracture”–leaving him in critical condition. 

In his interview with FHP’s Harper, according to the report, Waterman “stated that he and Leigha were in an argument due to personal issues with Leigha finding out she was pregnant that day and a text message Daniel received from a female friend in New York. Daniel and Leigha exchanged expletives. Daniel stated, Leigha began driving recklessly. Daniel stated, she slowed down to 50 miles per hour, and he tried to get out of the car, but then Leigha began to speed up to 80 to 90 miles per hour. Daniel stated, the last thing he remembers before the crash was Leigha told him, ‘I don’t care what happens, you’ll get what you deserve’ and swerved off the roadway, colliding with a tree, making Daniel incapacitated.”

Based on Harper’s investigation, Mumby was found to have “intentionally crashed the car. 

Parallel to the court case–a pre-trial for Mumby on Tuesday was continued–Waterman’s family has been seeking information about the pregnancy and the due date without success, and may fight for custody of the child. Just last week, the Waterman family retained John Hager, the Daytona Beach attorney, to represent them as victims with the right to confer with prosecutors and to be informed of all proceedings. Those contacts have been taking place. The next pre-trial is scheduled for Nov. 19.