New disturbing details emerged during the trial of California nurse Nicole Linton, accused of accelerating her Mercedes-Benz to 130 mph and running a red light in Los Angeles, causing a fiery crash that killed six people.
Linton is facing six counts of murder in connection with the August 2022 crash. She initially faced five additional counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, but prosecutors later dismissed those charges.
The jury trial began September 8 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Kimberly Linton, Nicole’s older sister, was the final defense witness and took the stand September 21.
In emotional testimony, Kimberly described increasingly unusual behavior from Nicole in the days and hours leading up to the crash.
Kimberly cried as she testified about five video calls with her sister the afternoon of the crash. According to the New York Post, Kimberly said her sister was speaking “gibberish” and “complete nonsense” as she drove around the city.
In one call, Nicole said she planned to marry Will Smith and told her sister to “meet me at the altar.” In another, she referenced Kimberly’s daughter, who lives in Philadelphia, saying, “Pack a lunch for daughter. I’m going to take her to school.”
Kimberly testified that her sister looked “confused” during their video calls, and that after they hung up, she contacted her other sister, Camille.
During that conversation, Kimberly accused Camille of “triggering Nicole” with a text message sent a few days before. The court played the call between the two sisters, with Kimberly telling Camille, “You know she’s not well.” Camille yelled back, “I don’t know she’s not well. I’ll never text her again.”
In another startling disclosure, Kimberly described erratic conduct days before the crash. In one video call, she said Nicole “popped up” naked. She also noted that Nicole had been “cleaning obsessively,” and that “the behavior was unusual.”
During opening statements on September 8, victims’ families wept as prosecutors showed graphic images of the crash.
The victims included Asherey Ryan, who was 8 months pregnant, her unborn baby Armani, her 11-month-old son Alonzo Quintero, and her boyfriend Reynold Lester.
Linton’s car broadsided their vehicle and split it in half. The gruesome crash threw Alonzo into a gas station’s parking lot, where a bystander attempted CPR. The unborn child’s remains were found on the road, umbilical cord still attached. Prosecutor Brittany Vannoy said of Ryan that “the baby was ripped from her womb.”
The crash also swept other cars into the wreckage, sparking a fireball that killed two more people: Nathesia Lewis, 42, and her friend Lynette Noble, 38.
Linton suffered minor injuries, though first responders reported she seemed confused.
“She asked, ‘Did I kill people? Did I hurt people?’” an EMT testified in 2024, per the Los Angeles Times. “And then she started to, I would say, freak out.”
Her attorney argues Linton suffered a massive seizure or a neurological episode that caused her to lose consciousness and floor the gas. Prosecutors dispute this claim, citing a doctor who treated Linton after the wreck and found no medical evidence to support it.
After the defense rested, Linton waived her right to testify. Closing arguments are expected to begin later this week or early next week.
