by Mike Donoghue, Vermont News First, Vermont Business Magazine
A teenage driver fined $220 for her part in a double-fatal car crash that killed an elderly Addison County couple in September 2020 in Charlotte is among those arrested at an anti-Israel encampment at Columbia University in New York last week.
And the family of the two dead victims still aren't happy that Isabel Jennifer Seward of Atlanta, Ga. never went to prison for crossing the double line and killing family members.
Public records show Seward, then 16, — whose father William J. Seward, was a longtime high-ranking executive at UPS — received a Vermont civil traffic ticket for an offense listed as “driving on roadways laned for traffic” in the double fatal crash, Vermont News First reported at the time.
Seward's mother later paid the $220 fine for her daughter, court records show.
The family of the dead couple – Chet Hawkins, who was a longtime town official in Ferrisburgh, and his wife, Connie – are furious that Seward was never seriously held accountable for killing the elderly couple, according to news accounts.
"The only reason she wasn't charged with murder is because she has a rich daddy. She should be behind bars," the New York Post quoted Eve Taylor, a niece of the victims, in its Sunday edition.
Seward, who had been visiting her grandfather, a doctor in Charlotte, was a two-sport athlete at Paideia, an exclusive private school in Atlanta.
Attempts to reach the family members through their lawyer before deadline were unsuccessful.
Seward provided at least three conflicting stories about her cellphone leading up to and after the crash near Church Hill Road on Sept. 8, 2020, according to the Vermont State Police accident report.
A driver trailing Seward captured the crash on video, police said. It showed Seward in a Toyota Tacoma crossing the double yellow line and crashing the small truck into the Hawkins car as he tried to pull as far right into the breakdown lane to avoid the crash, records show.
Instead of filing two felony criminal charges of careless and negligent driving with death resulting, Chittenden County State's Attorney Sarah George directed Vermont State Police to issue the teen the civil ticket, records show.
George, it turned out, was apparently more upset with the Vermont State Police for releasing the name of the teen-age driver, according to an email obtained by Vermont News First through a public records request at the time.
George wrote in an email to one of her deputies, “Unbelievable — why on earth would VSP not have contacted their freakin general counsel BEFORE releasing the name!??!”
State Police officials maintained they relied on the department’s transparency policy and several legal opinions, including from the Department of Motor Vehicles and ex-Public Safety Commissioner Thomas Anderson, who is a former U.S. Attorney for Vermont and the United States.
They also cited the Vermont Constitution, the Vermont Public Records Law and the rules of the Vermont Judiciary all siding with transparency for public records. Names of people in car accidents on public highways have always been considered public record in Vermont.
The Post reported the Hawkins family was shocked and furious that Seward was back in the news for breaking the law again. New York Police arrested Seward at the protest, handcuffed her and led her away, the Post reported.
“Chet and Connie’s family are all incensed,” Taylor said.
Taylor said she called the Vermont State Police Saturday morning to see if they would re-open the investigation into the fatal crash.
“I want her charged with murder,” Taylor said.
“She has no remorse, she received no punishment. She’s just prancing around Columbia with her Ivy League privilege. After basically getting away with murder, she’s now promoting murder, with no understanding of what she’s promoting,” the Post quoted the niece as saying.
"It’s outrageous they haven’t thrown her off campus.”
Seward may also have faced some kind of juvenile hearing in Vermont Family Court for the double fatal, but officials at the time said no serious action could be taken.
Vermont did not have a juvenile detention center for Seward to be jailed and the Department for Families and Children acknowledged it had no ability to monitor the teen-ager in Atlanta from Burlington – about 1,150 miles away.
George has declined to discuss the double-fatal crash or her dispute with VSP.
The video was clear about the crash.
The witness behind Seward's northbound vehicle said she made a sudden 45-degree turn into the oncoming lane and struck Vehicle 2 driven by Hawkins, the police report noted.
“The footage clearly shows Vehicle #1 leaving its lane of travel, continue travelling (sic) north in the southbound lane of US Route 7, before colliding head-on with Vehicle #2. There did not appear to be any attempt by Vehicle #1 to correct its course prior to the crash,” State Trooper Nate Quealy wrote in his preliminary crash report.
The area speed limit is 50 mph and Seward estimated for police she was driving at 56 mph, the report said.
