South MS judge rips hit-and-run driver before sentencing him in crash that injured girl
At first, a Biloxi man told a judge he thought he hit a deer before he sped off in his car from a hit-and-run crash that critically injured a 13-year-old girl attempting to walk across the street.
But Judge Lisa Dodson wasn’t buying it.
“You want me to believe you don’t have enough sense to stop and call the police?” Dodson said. “You knew exactly what to do. I don’t have any sympathy for you. Most people who hit a dog stop, and you hit a person.”
Eventually, David Isaac Harrell, 22, admitted he panicked and drove off after he saw the child roll over the hood of his car, resulting in fractures of the teen’s pelvis, a brain bleed, and other injuries that left the girl critically injured. The girl’s mother, Osavine Brown, said her daughter still has some functional disabilities and continues to undergo therapy to help with her condition.
He pleaded guilty to felony leaving the scene of an accident resulting in serious bodily injury to the child, identified by her mother as Teshawn Taylor.
The judge sentenced Harrell to 15 years in prison, suspending eight years and leaving him seven years to serve. She also fined him $2,000 and ordered him to pay restitution, which the judge said she would determine later based on the prosecutors’ calculations.
The girl and her older brother, then 16, had just left a Dollar General store when Harrell’s blue sedan struck the girl as she and her brother attempted to walk across the street around 9 p.m. on June 10, 2023.
Harrell said he had just gone to a drug store for some medication and was speeding down Dedeaux Road, reaching a speed of at least 50 mph, when he hit the girl.
‘I panicked, and I fled’
At his plea hearing Monday, Harrell said, “I hit the victim, I panicked, and I fled the scene.” He said he had never been in trouble before and didn’t know what to do, so he drove off.
Harrison County Assistant District Attorney Jason Josef said Harrell never stopped to aid the child or call 911 to report the incident.
Instead, Harrell said he first drove to a friend’s house in North Biloxi and told the friend what he had done, but he ignored her advice to turn himself in to police.
From there, Harrell said he went home to his parents’ house, confided to his mom about what had happened, and ignored her advice to surrender to Gulfport police.
His parents didn’t call the police to turn their son in.
Instead, the prosecutor said police gathered camera footage from Dollar General and other places along the road to get a description of Harrell’s car. After sharing the images of the car with the public, police identified Harrell as the suspect.
Gulfport police arrested him at his family’s home six days later.
Harrell continued to try to explain to the judge that he simply panicked, resulting in his actions that night.
But the judge fired back.
“You didn’t come back to the scene,” Dodson said. “You didn’t call anybody. You tell a friend and family. They didn’t tell anybody. They don’t call anybody to tell. You never once called for help. You never once went back to the scene to see how this child was.”
While the judge said she could accept that the incident was not intentional, she couldn’t ignore Harrell’s actions afterward.
Mother’s reaction
Prior to sentencing, a victim’s rights coordinator read a letter the child’s mother had written asking for leniency in sentencing, even asking the judge to consider house arrest for Harrell.
In the aftermath of the accident, Brown had reached out to Harrell’s mother, and she said she thought that Harrell’s mom had been fully transparent with her about what had happened that night.
“I forgave him,” she said.
After the sentencing, she said she felt misled.
“I tried to be transparent with this family, because I knew their son could face more time,” she said. “So, I’m thinking that this baby honestly made a mistake, but then I hear that he saw my child on the hood of his car.
“The whole time, I thought he thought he had hit a deer,” she said. “But he knew. That was my baby.”
This story was originally published April 8, 2025 at 10:22 AM.
