Parents of car crash victim push for teen driver’s mom to be held accountable

(GROSSE POINT, Mich.) — The parents of a teenage passenger killed in a high-speed car crash in Michigan are pushing for authorities to charge the mother of the driver.

In November 2023, Flynn MacKrell was riding in a car with his then-16-year-old friend who was driving over 100 mph in a 25 mph residential zone, according to police. The 16-year-old lost control and crashed into a tree, killing the 18-year-old MacKrell, according to police.

MacKrell died two months into his freshman year at the University of Dayton, according to his obituary.

The teen driver was charged with second-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty. He is awaiting trial. A lawyer for the family declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

But MacKrell’s family said they want the driver’s mother held responsible, too, saying the mother knew her son had a habit of driving excessively fast.

“He had no regard for his passenger safety, no regard for pedestrian safety. And the mother knew it,” MacKrell’s dad, Thad MacKrell, told ABC News.

The 16-year-old’s phone had Life360 — an app that shows how fast a car is going and where it is, according to an investigation report obtained by ABC News.

The driver’s mom repeatedly texted him in the weeks and months before the crash to stop speeding, at one point writing, “I have screen shots of you … driving 123 mph,” according to the report.

“Any reasonable person would have done something very, very simple — they would have taken the keys away. And she didn’t do it. And our son is dead,” Thad MacKrell said.

“Every day, we wake up in shock and disbelief that our beloved Flynn is gone,” MacKrell’s mom, Anne Vanker, said. “And it was 100% preventable.”

The MacKrell family is pointing to the Oxford, Michigan, school shooter case, in which the teenage gunman’s parents were held criminally responsible for giving their son the gun he used in the 2021 shooting, which killed four people. This April, the gunman’s parents, Jennifer and James Crumbley, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years after each was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials.

ABC News legal contributor Brian Buckmire said, “In the Crumbley case, we’re talking about a gun that is a, per se, dangerous weapon. One of its intentions is to harm or kill another. A vehicle or car is not necessarily a, per se, dangerous weapon.”

“It becomes a dangerous weapon when used reckless or negligently,” he continued. “So the way we view those two objects may have a different opinion as to how this case is pursued.”

The prosecutor’s office said it is reviewing the MacKrell case. Investigators have submitted a “warrant request” for a relative of the teen driver, prosecutors told ABC News.

The driver’s case is “adult designated,” according to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office. If convicted, “an adult designation allows the judge to have the option of sentencing the defendant as a juvenile, or as an adult, or to fashion a blended juvenile sentence with the option of imposing an adult sentence if the juvenile is not rehabilitated,” the prosecutor’s office said.