The 18-year-old who has been charged with vehicular homicide in the violent 151-mph crash that killed six people in Delray Beach, Florida this past January had a history of posting speeding videos of himself on social media, court documents revealed.
Noah Galle, 18, was charged with six counts of vehicular homicide on Monday for the deaths of Mirlaine Julceus, 45, Remize Michel, 53, Marie Louis, 60, Michel Saint, 77, Filaine Dieu, 46 and Vanice Percina, 29.
The group of six were carpooling together from the farm where they worked on 27 January when their Nissan Rogue was struck at the back by the BMW Mr Galle was driving, which was speeding along South State Road 7 in Delray Beach at 151 mph.
Mr Galle, who at the time was 17, was able to bring his vehicle to the outside shoulder and came to a stop, authorities reported at the time to WPBF.
The car full of colleagues, however, continued swerving in the direction of the median before it began flipping and landed upside down. Five of the car’s occupants were declared dead at the scene by authorities, while one later died at hospital, court records stated.
When Mr Galle provided an interview to authorities at the scene of the crime, he confirmed that he was the sole driver of the BMW that rammed the Nissan Rogue.
One of the officers at the scene reportedly asked the teen: “Hey, how fast were you driving?”, to which Mr Galle answered, “above 120”, according to court records.
It was only after the crash that officers began to receive tips about Mr Galle’s previous daring speeding endeavours on similar tracts of highway.
One day after the crash, court documents revealed that a woman reached out to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office twice over the course of a week to share screenshots of Mr Galle’s Instagram and TikTok accounts, where he posted videos of himself driving at “extremely high rates of speed”.
The court documents reveal that the habit was allegedly so common for the teen that he had reportedly posted his Instagram handle on the rear windows of the driver and passenger sides of his vehicle, and in one video that the woman shared with investigators, there was a caption that asked viewers to “guess the speed correctly”, with the winner allegedly getting “$25 on cash app”.
It was after this came to light that the Palm Beach authorities received a search warrant to access Mr Galle’s Instagram account, where court records say they found a video where the teen had posted himself speeding on the Interstate 95 going 182 mph.
Mr Galle made his first court appearance on Tuesday via Zoom, where his lawyers argued that the teen had suffered from suicidal ideation since the fatal January car crash and because of this, should be released back to his family.
Some of the family members of the six victims who had their lives claimed on that January highway also attended the hearing and provided impact statements of what their lives have been like since that tragic day.
“This has been a very, very hard situation for my whole family, my sister and I and my daughter," said Lyndie Louis, the 60-year-old Marie Louis’ daughter. “She’s 8. Every time she comes home she’s been asking, ‘Why can’t grandma come back, Mom?’”
“I think that the defendant should be in jail and not at home. We can’t see our families now and why should he?” said Ms Louis, while choking up with tears. “This was a very reckless crime and not just for my mom — everybody’s lives. We need justice.”
A fundraiser arranged by the victims’ employer, Pero Family Farms, is being organised to “support the loved ones” of the crash.
“We knew and worked with them for years and are devastated,” the fundraiser reads. “100% of the proceeds received will be equally split among the families.”
The judge presiding over Mr Galle’s case, Palm Beach County Juvenile Court Judge Cymonie Rowe, sided with the teen’s attorneys and agreed to have him placed on house arrest and the bond was set at $300,000, $50,000 for each crash victim.
He is also prohibited from having any contact with families of the crash victims and was ordered on Thursday by a judge to undergo a mental health evaluation at a hospital before he can return home for house arrest.
Mr Galle entered a plea of not guilty to all charges, court records state.
