Truck driver, trucking company indicted in crash that killed nursing students

ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News has learned that a grand jury has indicted the driver and the trucking company he works for, on murders charges for their involvement in a deadly crash that killed five nursing students. %

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Emily Clark, a junior from Powder Springs, Morgan Bass, a junior from Leesburg, Abbie Deloach, a junior from Savannah, McKay Pittman, a junior from Alpharetta, and Caitlyn Bagget, a junior from Millen, were all killed in the April 2015 crash outside of Charleston.

The group was traveling to Savannah when their vehicle was involved in a crash with a tractor trailer on April 22.

Brittney McDaniel of Reidsville and Megan Richards of Loganville were injured in the crash. All seven girls were students in the nursing school at Georgia Southern University.

The indictment was handed down Wednesday against John Wayne Johnson, the driver who allegedly hit the girls, and the company he worked for, Total Transportation of Mississippi.

Johnson was indicted on multiple charges of homicide by vehicle, and one count of serious injury by vehicle, reckless driving, failure to exercise due care and following too closely.

Total Transportation has been indicted on multiple charges of homicide by vehicle, along with one count of criminal responsibility of corporations and serious injury by vehicle.

At the time, Channel 2 investigator report Aaron Diamant uncovered federal records for the trucking company showing over the last two years, company drivers have been slapped with 266 unsafe driving violations.

Also among the records Diamant found that Total Transportation had also been cited 107 times for speeding, 45 violations for not following a traffic control devices, nine violations for driving while using a cellphone and five for following too closely.

Cox Media Group