Staff report
SALISBURY — A Salisbury woman has been charged in the July 11 wreck that claimed the life of her 12-year-old nephew.
Brandy Nicole Naylor, 24, of Clancy Street, went to the Salisbury Police Department just after 4 p.m. Tuesday and was served with an arrest warrant for misdemeanor death by vehicle, Police Chief Rory Collins said in a press release.
She was placed under a $1,000 secured bond. Naylor was not listed among the inmates at the Rowan County jail Tuesday night.
Investigators said 12-year-old John Marshall Murdock was not wearing a seat belt as required by law when he was riding with Naylor and her 2-year-old child on Old Airport Road the afternoon of July 11.
According to police, Naylor tried to turn left into a parking lot in the 1000 block of Old Airport Road and pulled into the path of an oncoming Jeep Cherokee driven by Chandra Dawn Proctor. The Jeep struck Naylor’s Honda Accord in the rear passenger side, where Murdock was sitting. He died at the scene.
The Jeep was traveling 41 mph when it hit the Honda, police said. The speed limit in that area is 45 mph.
Naylor was not injured. Her toddler, who was in a child-restraint seat, was taken to Rowan Regional Medical Center as a precaution with a bump on the forehead, police said. Neither the driver of the Jeep nor her two children were hurt, police said.
Police investigators turned over their findings to the Rowan County District Attorney’s Office, which determined the charge against Naylor, Collins said in the press release.
Naylor has a Sept. 10 court date.
A relative described Murdock as a “kind-hearted kid” who loved spending time with his family, playing video games and learning the guitar. He would have been in the seventh grade at Southeast Middle School this fall.