Case Coverage
State of Florida v. Leigha Mumby
THE DYING LAST WORDS TRIAL · Flagler County, Florida
VERDICT: GUILTY
Start from the Beginning →
THE DYING LAST WORDS TRIAL · Flagler County, Florida
VERDICT: GUILTY
On the night of 2025-02-09, a white Honda Passport left northbound Interstate 95 in Palm Coast, Florida, and hit a tree. Leigha Mumby was driving. Her boyfriend, Daniel Waterman, was in the passenger seat. He died on 2025-10-08, and the State charged her with vehicular homicide and with reckless driving causing him serious bodily injury. The outlet carrying the trial calls it the Dying Last Words Trial, and before a single witness was sworn, Judge Dawn Nichols ruled that the jury would not hear any of his statements made outside the courtroom. The State then dropped the one charge that depended on intent.
So the trial ran without him. On Day 1, 2026-10-13, the jury heard opening statements and six State witnesses: his cousin Sarah Stappenbeck, the deputy, the paramedic Elena Malzahn, Trooper Darin Harper, the pathologist Dr. James A. Terzian, and the crash reconstruction expert Chip O'Toole, who read the car's data. The defense called one witness, her roommate Michael Tolbert, and rested. Leigha Mumby did not testify. On Day 2, 2026-10-14, came the closing arguments, the instructions and one question from the jury. Six jurors found her guilty as charged on both counts, reckless driving with serious bodily injury and vehicular homicide, and each was polled. Judge Dawn Nichols adjudicated her guilty, ordered a presentence investigation, remanded her into custody and revoked her bond. No sentencing date was stated on the record.
That is the record, and the verdict stands on it. The question we keep asking is the one the case's own nickname puts on the table. Six jurors convicted on a car's data, two phone calls and the people who came to the scene, and never heard a word from the man at the center of it. Was keeping every one of his statements out the rules of evidence working exactly as written for the accused, or did it leave a jury judging the last minutes inside that car with less than either side knew? We are not the jury, and these six have decided. What comes next, the sentence, belongs to Judge Dawn Nichols, and we will be watching it.
The Dying Last Words Trial before the first witness: the crash, the charges, the rulings that kept his statements from the jury, and the questions we went in with.
Read Full Background →DAY 2, 2026-10-14: CLOSING ARGUMENTS AND THE VERDICT
DAY 1, 2026-10-13: OPENING STATEMENTS AND THE EVIDENCE
THE SEVEN WHOLE TESTIMONIES OF DAY 1
DAY 1 CLIPS
DAY 1 AS IT HAPPENED, AND THE SHORTS
New to the case? Start with the background above, then the Case Story from Part 1.