Lakeisha Holloway, the woman who allegedly drove her car through a crowd of people in Las Vegas over the weekend–killing one and injuring several others–was reportedly stressed out by her living situation at the time and had been run out of a parking garage where she had been sleeping in her car.
Holloway told investigators that she was from Oregon and had run out of money recently, apparently while on a trip to Texas to find her daughter’s father. Holloway and her daughter had been trying to rest in her car during the afternoon on Sunday but were driven away from various spots by security personnel.
“She ended up on the Strip, ‘a place she did not want to be,'” reads the police report. “She would not explain why she drove onto the sidewalk but remembered a body bouncing off her windshield, breaking it.”
Despite a troubled past that included homelessness and an alcoholic mother, Holloway reportedly received a role-model award at school in 2012 and was a “star pupil” during her time there. Now, she’ll be charged with murder. Lakeisha is currently in a Nevada jail on suicide watch.
Lakeisha’s cousin, LaShay Hardaway, says Holloway has always been a good mother–often sacrificing sleep for her daughter’s sake–and may have fallen asleep behind the wheel.
“She’s just always thinking about her daughter or the next thing she needs to take care of,” Hardaway said.
At the moment, investigators have no clues as to why Lakeisha would intentionally run down a group of people with her vehicle, but Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo says that after the incident she parked at a local casino and calmly asked an attendant to call 911.
“She didn’t appear to be distressed due to her actions. That’s the best way I can describe it,” Lombardo said.