ATHENS, Ga. — The family of a UGA student killed in a wrong-way crash is hoping for some type of justice through a $50 million lawsuit.
The man accused of causing the crash is on the run.
Ph.D. student Beth Buchanan and her mother were driving to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport when this family’s nightmare began Feb. 13, 2023.
“We had to get up early for a 6 a.m. flight,” Dr. Julia Olsen-Buchanan told Channel 2’s Candace McCowan.
It’s been three years since Beth was killed driving her mother to the airport after a weekend visit. Julia had traveled from California to see her daughter.
“As we were driving along University Parkway, we suddenly saw a white glimmer in her headlights, and it was the car,” she said.
She said the car was coming at them at a high rate of speed and didn’t have headlights.
Beth was killed, and Julia was hospitalized for three weeks.
The driver accused of hitting them, Cesar Macias, was also injured. He was allowed to recover at home and he ran off.
“He’s out there living his life,” Julia said. “It’s been three years, and he hasn’t had to really own up to anything.”
After a hearing Tuesday, they’re waiting to hear from an Athens-Clarke County judge. They filed a lawsuit seeking $50 million from that driver and his insurance company.
“It would be a recognition of who she is, and it wouldn’t begin to touch what value she brought to the world to her friends her family and her future,” her mother said.
The money won’t bring Beth back, but it would be one step closer to some type of justice.
“It would be something we could point to, some sort of reckoning,” Julia said.
The insurance company did not respond to a request for comment.
There is a $15,000 reward for Macias. Channel 2 spoke to the U.S. Marshals about the case Wednesday, and they said, “We won’t stop looking.”
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