Potomania

[noun]: an intense persistent desire to drink alcoholic beverages to excess

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Jake Wood | Andrew Leonard

Wake County sheriff's investigators want to know more about a party where two young men may have been drinking before they got into a car and were involved in an accident that left one of them dead.

On Sunday, authorities charged Jake Wood, 18, of Apex, with felony death by motor vehicle after the car he was driving veered off of the Green Level Church Road in Apex and flipped in the air several times.

The passenger in the vehicle, Andrew Hunter Leonard, 19, of Apex was ejected from the vehicle and later died at WakeMed Hospital. Authorities do not think Leonard was wearing his seatbelt.

Wood told news reporters Sunday that he had gone to pick Leonard up at a party and that once he got there, he stayed for about an hour.

State Highway Patrol troopers said Wood had alcohol in his system at the time of the crash and that he was driving 55 mph in a 45 mph zone. According to authorities, Wood's blood-alcohol level registered .09 at the accident scene, and a second test a few hours later measured his blood-alcohol level at .06.