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New details revealed Nicole Lorraine Linton, the 37-year-old responsible for the Windsor Hills crash that happened Thursday at a California intersection, was linked to 13 prior car accidents and reportedly had a mental illness history.
While requesting no bail for the defendant, prosecutors informed the judge that Linton had “a number of prior collisions throughout the United States” in court on Tuesday. The L.A. District Attorneys are still looking to obtain further information about the other incidents. Still, the one they do know about is a 2020 collision that involved two vehicles and resulted in bodily injury. Linton is reportedly a traveling ICU nurse, which the DA argued the defendant posed as a “flight risk” if bail was allowed.
“We’re concerned that she may be a flight risk based on [the number of charges, severity of the charges, and the severity of the potential sentence],” prosecutors stated in court. “We don’t feel that any amount of bail would be sufficient to ensure she returns to court given the strength of the case as well as the number of charges.”
Linton’s lawyer, Halim Dhanidina, argued that the woman has no prior criminal history and that the incident was caused “in large part by documented profound mental health issues” the nurse has had for years. Dhanidina added that they were in the process of obtaining more information about her mental illness.
“We are trying to answer the question of…why it happened, and given that this is pointing towards a mental health issue, an issue of illness versus any kind of propensity for violence or anti-social behavior,” Dhanidina said. “Miss Linton can appropriately be treated and housed out of the Skoda environment in a way that would not render her a threat to herself or anyone in the public.”
The court ordered that no bail be set in the matter due to her posing a threat to the public because, despite working temporarily in Los Angeles, it’s not her residence. The judge stated that house arrest wasn’t sufficient enough because she could leave or disable her ankle monitor. Furthermore, the $300,000 bond Linton’s lawyer requested was denied because the judge said it wasn’t enough.
The judge said that whether it was intentional or caused by her mental illness, she should’ve been “aware of her limitation” as a nurse and still got behind the wheel.
News Onyx previously reported that Linton was identified as the woman who caused a major vehicle crash in Windsor Hills of Downtown Los Angeles with her Mercedes sedan on Aug. 4, killing six people, including a pregnant woman and her unborn child.