Leigha Mumby went on trial in Flagler County on Monday in a case that turns a deadly car crash into a question of intent. Prosecutors say she intentionally drove into a tree after an argument with Daniel Waterman, and the crash later killed him.
The proceeding matters now because the jury is being asked to decide whether a fatal wreck was a reckless loss of control or something more deliberate. Mumby faces charges of vehicular homicide and reckless driving, and the case has become one of those rare criminal trials where the line between a mistake and a choice is the entire point.
Prosecutors said Mumby and Waterman were arguing in the car just minutes before the crash. They said she was screaming that Waterman was cheating on her and that she had seen a text from another woman. Investigators said the vehicle then accelerated to more than 90 mph before leaving the road and striking a tree.
Waterman, 22, initially survived. He suffered serious injuries, later fell into a coma and died months afterward from those injuries. The facts now in front of the jury come from the Florida Highway Patrol and from court proceedings on Oct. 13, 2026.
That timeline leaves the defense room to argue that the crash was not deliberate, even as prosecutors say it was. A defense attorney asked whether it made more sense that something happened inside the vehicle that Mumby did not expect, did not anticipate and did not control, a line aimed at the gap between a high-speed wreck and proof of intent. Investigators, however, said Waterman told them Mumby said, “I don’t care what happens. You’ll get what you deserve,” before the crash.
Mumby was pregnant with Waterman’s child at the time of the crash, a fact that deepens the stakes without changing the legal question. The trial now turns on what the jury believes about those minutes in the car, the speed, the words spoken and whether the wreck was the result of a loss of control or a decision that ended with Waterman’s death.
