2nd driver guilty in fatal Serra Catholic van crash; judge finds no proof of racing

Andrew Voigt vehemently denied that he and another driver were racing across the Mansfield Bridge in Dravosburg the day a 15-year-old Serra Catholic student was killed on her way to school.

But to the judge, it didn’t matter.

Voigt’s speed — potentially as high as 107 mph — was enough to make his actions reckless, especially given that it was 7:20 a.m. on a weekday in a residential area when the other driver’s vehicle struck Samantha Kalkbrenner’s school van.

“The conduct here, committed by Mr. Voigt, placed everyone in that van in danger of death or serious bodily injury,” said Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Bruce Beemer.

He found Voigt guilty of five misdemeanor counts of recklessly endangering another person, reckless driving, careless driving and speeding.

Beemer, however, found him not guilty of racing and failing to stop and render aid.

“It is unclear to the court what motivated this ridiculously dangerous behavior to occur that day,” Beemer said.

Voigt, 56, of Penn Hills, will be sentenced on Aug. 19. The other driver, William Soliday, pleaded guilty last month to third-degree murder and was ordered to serve 5½-12 years in state prison.

Voigt showed no reaction as Beemer announced his verdict, sitting at counsel table with his eyes downcast.

Prosecutors asked that Voigt’s bond be revoked, but the judge declined, given that he has no previous criminal record.

Police said Soliday and Voigt were racing around 7:20 a.m. Sept. 20, 2023, as they crossed the Mansfield Bridge, which connects Dravosburg and McKeesport. Both men were heading to work at Bettis Atomic Laboratory in West Mifflin.

Just after the bridge, Soliday’s vehicle, a Volkswagen Jetta, struck a school van carrying four students to Serra Catholic, killing Samantha.

Video taken from a Tesla traveling on the road at the time showed the impact. It also showed Voigt’s dark-colored Jeep Grand Cherokee drive past the crash and continue on.

According to the Jetta’s event data recorder, Soliday’s vehicle was traveling at 107 mph five seconds before the crash. He hit the brakes 1.5 seconds before impact and was moving at 90 mph when the Jetta T-boned the van.

‘I wasn’t racing’

On Thursday, prosecutors played a 56-minute recording of detectives interviewing Voigt the afternoon of the crash.

They tracked him down using video from the scene and license-plate reading cameras.

Voigt acknowledged he was on the road that day.

After the crash, he said he lost control of his bowels, pulled over onto a side road and vomited on himself.

“I panicked,” he told them. “I was a mess.”

Voigt said he thought about calling 911 but didn’t since there were other vehicles in the area when the crash occurred.

“I was upset. I can’t really help anybody. I just kind of locked up,” he said.

Instead, Voigt said he drove home, cleaned himself up, switched cars and drove to work.

Several minutes into the interview, he acknowledged that while he was home, he removed a distinctive white sticker on his rear window showing a tank driving over stick figures that read: “Nobody cares about your stick figure family.”

He said he thought the sticker showed “the wrong message.”

During his interview, Voigt claimed that the Jetta was pulling away from him on the bridge. He acknowledged it was dangerous to speed in that area given the side streets nearby.

He also said at least four times that he and the other driver were not racing, although Voigt acknowledged he was driving above the speed limit that day.

Repeatedly during their interview with Voigt, detectives hounded him about why he didn’t stop that day.

The detectives asked Voigt about his military service and whether he was trained to help others in a situation like that. He told the detectives he was a tanker, retired from the Pennsylvania Air National Guard in 2009 and did two tours in Iraq.

“As a soldier, you would stop and help, right?” they asked.

“That’s why I’m very embarrassed,” Voigt answered.

The detectives responded, “It sounds like somebody who didn’t do the right thing and call for help.

“It sounds like someone who feels guilty.”

“All I can say is I panicked,” Voigt said.

“You feel guilty because you were racing,” the detective said.

“I wasn’t racing,” Voigt answered.

Voigt said he didn’t know Soliday and that there were 2,300 people that work at Bettis.

“Did you have words with him?” the detective asked.

“No, no nothing,” Voigt answered. “I don’t even know who he is.”

During the interview, Voigt also downplayed the speed and capability of his vehicle, a Trailhawk, with a 707-horsepower Hellcat engine capable of 0-60 mph in 3½ seconds.

“Those Jeep Cherokees are loud, but it doesn’t make it fast,” Voigt said when the detectives asked if his car was supercharged.

The detectives said that Voigt’s wife told them he referred to the car as “a showpiece.”

He denied statements made by two witnesses that he “fishtailed” on the bridge, repeatedly saying that never happened.

Voigt told detectives that he initially thought the vehicle the Jetta struck was a delivery van.

During the entire interview, Det. Blake Mahoney said, Voigt never asked about the van’s occupants and whether they were OK.

‘The way was clear’

After the prosecution rested, the defense called just one witness, Richard Maleski, the driver of the school van that day.

Maleski testified that he’d been driving for Serra Catholic for three years, and that he had a relationship with all of the kids on the van that day.

He recounted picking each student up that morning — Samantha was last, he said.

After she got in the van, Maleski said she dropped her water bottle as he approached the intersection at Third and Richland streets.

“I told her I’d wait for her to get it,” he said.

Samantha picked up her bottle, and Maleski looked both ways before pulling into the intersection.

“The way was clear,” he said. “It was safe to pull out.

“I never seen that vehicle.”

The next thing Maleski said he remembered was being upside down in the van.

He helped one of the boys who was still inside to get out, Maleski said.

“I couldn’t find the girls,” he continued. “I remember I walked around to help try to find the kids.”

The van was on top of Samantha, he said. He tried to push it off of her.

“I was yelling for help.”

Maleski testified that he spent four days at UPMC Mercy where he was diagnosed with a broken sternum and ribs, torn rotator cuff, bicep and labrum.

It was there, too, that he tested positive for cocaine metabolites. Maleski told doctors there he had used the drug several days earlier.

“I was not high (during the crash),” he said.

Maleski was not charged or cited for his role in the crash, he said, although the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office did give him immunity for his testimony.

Reckless conduct

During closing arguments Thursday, defense attorney Kevin Chernosky argued the prosecution could not prove his client was racing and, therefore, could not prove reckless endangerment.

“The testimony shows Mr. Voigt’s car never made any contact with that van,” Chernosky said.

Although witnesses and detectives speculated the two drivers were racing, he continued, there was no proof they agreed to do so.

“What the record is devoid of is any actual evidence that occurred,” Chernosky said. “No witnesses saw any signaling between them.”

Instead, he continued, the prosecution’s case is based on guesswork and conjecture.

“Speed alone is not sufficient to establish Mr. Voigt endangered the people in the van that day,” Chernosky said. “They need to prove that these two vehicles were racing.”

But Assistant District Attorney Lauren Sowko said the elements to prove the charges against Voigt are simply showing that he engaged in conduct that was reckless and placed another person in danger of death or serious bodily injury.

“I don’t think we have to do any guesswork,” she said.

Sowko recounted the statement of one witness who testified Wednesday that he was driving 65 mph, and the Jeep blew past him.

“That’s alarmingly fast,” Sowko said.

She told the court that there didn’t need to be a written agreement between Voigt and Soliday to race.

“‘My engine’s bigger than yours,’” she suggested.

“The interview shows he knew the risk of what he was doing that day,” Sowko said. “He was speeding during rush hour during the school year.

“His conduct contributed to the behavior that led to the Jetta striking the van.”