The Dezyer Mays Case: Brutal Hit And Run Death

[Euclid, Ohio]

On November 9th, 2017, Dezyer Mays (9) was headed off to school. She was a straight A third grade student.

Minutes after 7:00am, she attempted to cross the street to stand at her bus stop as Lacynthia Tidmore (25) was driving on a suspended license and using her phone.

She was speeding toward Dezyer when a car behind Lacynthia tried to blow on the horn to warn her, but she was so distracted that she still hit the little girl. The impact killed Dezyer immediately.

Instead of stopping, Lacynthia drove to a gas station where she joked with the clerk, who happened to be friends with someone related to Dezyer, about the damage to her car. Then she called a relative to drive her to work because of the major damage. After her work shift, she called police to confess her guilt and arrange her arrest. However, Dezyer’s mother claimed that the driver only turned herself in because the car behind her followed her to the gas station to report the incident to police.

Dezyer stayed on life support for 15 days before her mother reluctantly decided to let her go, but not before saving other childrens’ lives by donating her organs.

Lacynthia was charged with aggravated vehicular homicide and failure to stop after an accident. Until her trial, she was allowed to roam free on bail which resulted in her running into Dezyer’s mom in a grocery store. When Lacynthia spotted the mother, she began yelling antagonizing statements rather than apologizing. A physical fight began between Lacynthia, her boyfriend, and sister against Dezyer’s mother.

“I would have some type of sympathy for Lacynthia if she just would have stopped. The accident had already happened. She broke my daughter’s neck. That’s how my daughter died. She died on the scene. She was in the hospital for 15 days because I could not let her go…she broke both of my daughter’s femurs. She slashed from the inside out. She broke every bone in my daughters face, every tooth in front of her face was gone. Her chin was split wide open. Her eyes were bulging out of her head. Her neck was broken. You had to be speeding. No way you were going 30 miles…For you to just disregard…you knew what you did…how your tire fell off. Your bumper was off…There were no tire marks in the street. You kept going.” said her mother during her victim impact statement.

Lacynthia tried to claim that she was only going 30 miles per hour on the road and never knew she hit a child. However, the judge did not believe her defense and sentenced her to 8 years in prison in May of 2018. The only time she showed emotion during her trial was after hearing her official sentence. She has to serve three years of mandatory post-release control following her prison sentence. Her driver’s license was suspended for life.