Georgia Mayor Convicted in Vehicular Homicide Case.

WHAT HAPPENED: A west Georgia mayor, A.J. Scott, was found guilty of vehicular homicide and other charges related to a 2015 crash that killed two teenagers and injured two others.

WHO WAS INVOLVED: A.J. Scott, Mayor of Buchanan and former state trooper; victims Kylie Lindsey, Isabella Chinchilla, Dillon Wall, and Ben Finken.

WHEN & WHERE: The crash occurred in 2015 in west Georgia. The verdict was reached on Wednesday during a retrial in Carroll County following a 2019 mistrial.

KEY QUOTE: “We’ve lost our daughters and we’ve just hung onto the hope that we would get a ‘guilty’ out of this and we did, and justice prevailed for us,” said Leslie Woods, mother of Isabella Chinchilla.

IMPACT: Scott was taken into custody immediately after the verdict and will be sentenced at a later date. Questions remain about his future as the Mayor of Buchanan.

A.J. Scott, the current mayor of Buchanan, Georgia, has been found guilty of vehicular homicide and several other charges stemming from a 2015 crash that claimed the lives of two teenagers and injured two others. The verdict came during a retrial held in Carroll County, where Scott was convicted of one count of second-degree vehicular homicide, two counts of serious injury by vehicle, speeding, and reckless driving. He was acquitted of a second count of vehicular homicide.

The crash, which occurred while Scott was a Georgia state trooper, involved a Nissan Altima carrying four teenagers. Kylie Lindsey, 17, and Isabella Chinchilla, 16, were killed, while Dillon Wall and Ben Finken, who were in the front seats, sustained injuries. Prosecutors argued Scott was driving at approximately 90 mph without activating his lights or sirens and was not responding to an emergency call at the time of the collision.

Scott, who was elected Mayor of Buchanan in 2019 and has since been reelected, was taken into custody immediately following the verdict and transported to the Carroll County Jail. His sentencing will take place at a later date. The case was retried after a mistrial was declared in 2019 due to allegations that the district attorney’s office withheld evidence.

Leslie Woods, the mother of Isabella Chinchilla, expressed relief following the verdict, stating, “We’ve lost our daughters and we’ve just hung onto the hope that we would get a ‘guilty’ out of this and we did, and justice prevailed for us.”

Scott testified during the trial, claiming he was on his way to pick up a body-worn radio from another officer when the crash occurred. Defense attorneys argued that the teenagers had been drinking, which contributed to the incident. However, jurors ultimately sided with the prosecution’s narrative, which emphasized Scott’s speeding and reckless driving as the primary causes of the crash.

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