Texas teen charged in death stemming from egg-throwing prank: police

[January 03, 2019]  (Reuters) - Texas authorities on Wednesday charged a teenager with murder after a prank that began when he and passengers in the car he was driving threw eggs at other vehicles ended in a crash that killed a 45-year-old woman, authorities said.

The 14-year-old boy, who was not identified, and two teenage passengers in the sport utility vehicle (SUV) he was driving "were reportedly throwing eggs at other cars just prior to the crash," Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said on Twitter. Harris County contains Houston.

A man who showed a handgun began to chase the teens in his own vehicle, leading the 14-year-old driver to speed through a red light and crash into a pickup truck driven by 45-year-old Silvia Zavala, who died at the scene, the sheriff's office said in a statement.

"The deceased female was totally innocent; seems she had just gone shopping based on some debris strewn at scene," Gonzalez said on Tuesday.

The minimum age for unsupervised driving in Texas is 16, according to the state Department of Public Safety.

The teenaged driver, who broke his ankle in the crash, was booked into a juvenile detention facility, Gonzalez said.
 

The sheriff's office on Wednesday said investigators had located and interviewed the driver of the car that chased the teens. They did not name the driver of the second car.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely; editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

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