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 Adacia Avery Chambers, 25, allegedly drove a gray Hyundai Elantra
into a crowd watching Saturday's parade in Stillwater, about 65
miles (105 km) southwest of Oklahoma City.
Police said they suspected Chambers was intoxicated. Three adults
and a toddler were killed and about four dozen people were injured,
five of them critically.
Stillwater police said in a statement on Sunday the murder charges
were filed in consultation with the Payne County District Attorney's
office. Police were still awaiting results of a blood test
administered to Chambers after the crash.
Her lawyer, Tony Coleman, told The Oklahoman newspaper he believes
his client is mentally ill and doubted she was drunk at the time of
the crash.
"I don't believe right now that she was intoxicated,” Coleman told
the newspaper. “I have deep concerns about her competency at this
point. I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but I can tell you
she's suffering from mental illness,” Coleman said.
 Reuters could not reach Coleman immediately. Chambers was expected
to make an initial appearance in Payne County District Court on
Monday afternoon, police said.
A man who was watching the parade with his family said the crash
sounded like a bomb had gone off, transforming a festive mood into
one of horror.
"All I remember was a gush of wind and then the sound," Mark McNitt
said at a news conference, recalling when the vehicle jumped the
curb, mowing down dozens of men, women and children.
"The only thing I can relate it to is some type of bombing," said
McNitt, whose father-in-law Leo Schmitz, 54, was critically injured.
"The screaming ... and a lot of screaming."
Police said Chambers lives in Stillwater but did not appear to be an
OSU student. She worked at Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers in
Stillwater, her employer said.
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Her father, Floyd Chambers, 47, earlier told The Oklahoman his
daughter lived with her boyfriend in Stillwater. He described her as
timid and not an alcoholic.
“They’re going to paint her into a horrible person but this is not
(her),” he told the paper.
In a statement on Sunday, police identified the three adults who
were killed as Nakita Prabhakar, 23, of Edmond, Oklahoma; Bonnie
Jean Stone, 65; and Marvin Lyle Stone, 65, both of Stillwater. They
were all pronounced dead at the scene.
A toddler died later Saturday, police said. Family members
identified him as Nash Lucas, according to Oklahoma television
station KOTV.
Prabhakar, originally from Mumbai, India, was a graduate business
student at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, the school
said, identifying her as Nikita Nakal. The school could not be
reached immediately to clarify the discrepancy.
Stone was a professor of agricultural engineering at OSU, according
to the school's website. He retired in 2006 and founded the Marvin
and Bonnie Stone Endowed Scholarship Fund with his wife the
following year.
(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York and Curtis
Skinner in San Francisco; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by
Jeffrey Benkoe and Christian Plumb)
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