Woman charged in fatal accident

Staff Reports

A Wellington woman is facing charges in connection with a fatal May collision in Topaz Ranch Estates.

Windie Lee Atchison, 33, was booked and released on charges of vehicular manslaughter and driving without due care.

Atchison is accused of colliding with 90-year-old Darrell David Daugherty as he was turning onto Albite Road from Highway 208.

The rear of Daugherty's Ford Taurus was obliterated by the collision with the Ford F350 driven by Atchison.

Atchison and her passenger originally claimed that Daugherty pulled out in front of her from Albite.

However, witnesses to the accident came forward and Daugherty's daughter provided investigators with information that he was turning left into the south county subdivision when he was killed.

Atchison faces two gross misdemeanors in the accident. She told Nevada Highway Patrol troopers that one minute the way was clear and the next she saw Daugherty's vehicle just in front of her.

Daugherty lived at Lake Tahoe before he moved to Topaz Ranch Estates in the 1970s. His wife died about six years ago, which is when his daughter and her husband moved to Gardnerville to be close to him.

n A Gardnerville man was arrested in lieu of $1,000 bail for driving under the influence of alcohol.

William John Hart, 24, was stopped after he allegedly nearly hit a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper who was investigating an accident on Highway 395.

The trooper reported that he was setting up cones at Highway 395 and Industrial Way when Hart's pickup forced him to dive out of the way. The trooper pursued Hart and pulled him over.

Hart denied the charge in East Fork Justice Court on Wednesday and a Sept. 13 hearing was set.

n A 30-year-old Gardnerville Ranchos man said he was struck by a tattooed stranger on his way home Saturday night.

The victim said he was leaving the Tillman Lane 7-Eleven at about 10:30 p.m. when a man he didn't know started yelling obscenities at him. He was trying to walk away when the man struck him.

The victim described the man as a white male adult, about 30 with tattoos from his wrist to his shoulder.