LEESBURG, Fla.—A Leesburg man has been arrested in the death of a 94-year-old man killed in a crash in December 2023.
Donald Urban Jass, also of Leesburg, was driving a 2015 Subaru Forester eastbound on Plantation Boulevard when a 2017 Chevy Malibu slammed into him at the intersection of U.S. Highway 27. The Malibu was traveling between 62 and 74 miles per hour at impact, and was traveling at 81 miles per hour just 1.5 seconds before the crash, the vehicle’s data later showed. The Malibu’s driver, Graedonn Humphrey, was southbound on U.S. Highway 27 when he ran the light and hit Jass, according to a probable cause affidavit. The speed limit in that area is 55 miles per hour
Jass, an Army Bronze Star Medal recipient for his service in Vietnam, was transported to South Lake-Blue Cedar Hospital where he was pronounced dead less than an hour after the crash.
Humphrey, who does not have a driver license, was transported to UF Health Leesburg Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and released the same day. After clearing the crash, a Florida Highway Patrol traffic homicide investigator went to the address listed on his identification card and found the home vacant.
Four days later the investigator was able to contact Humphrey at an apartment on Bentley Road in Leesburg. Humphrey said he was aware he was driving without a license and when the light turned yellow, he attempted to stop, but the brakes “were not working properly,” the affidavit states. A later inspection of the brakes showed they were functioning properly and the pads appeared new and recently replaced.
DNA collected from the Malibu’s deployed airbag matched Humphrey, who is on probation currently, and was at the time of the crash. A warrant was issued for his arrest for vehicular homicide and operating a vehicle without a driver’s license causing a death late last week, and troopers arrested him at his Leesburg home Monday. He is being held in the Lake county Jail on no bond.
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