A man whose truck rammed a limousine, sparking a fire that killed the wife of a former NASCAR crew chief and two others, was convicted Friday of three counts of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to five to six years in prison. Jeffrey Niles McFayden also was convicted in Guilford County Superior Court of one count of driving while impaired. Evidence showed the limousine, bringing the women back from a concert, was stopped in traffic on Interstate 40 Greensboro on Sept. 10, 2003 when it was struck from behind by McFayden. The limousine exploded almost immediately and trapped the victims. Tara Howell Parker, wife of Dale Jarrett’s former crew chief, Shawn Parker; her stepsister, Mysti Howell Poplin, 24, and her half-sister, Megan Elizabeth Howell, 16, died of smoke inhalation and burns. McFayden’s attorney, Krispen Culbertson, argued the fire sparked by a leak from the limo’s gas tank resulted in the women’s deaths, not the crash. Howard Neumann, chief Guilford County assistant district attorney, argued that McFayden was intoxicated and got behind the wheel without any regard for human life. McFayden had a blood-alcohol content of 0.17 after the crash, more than twice the legal limit, police said. The women’s families also blame the limousine’s gas tank in a pending lawsuit against Ford Motor Co. The lawsuit alleges that the limousine, a 1998 Lincoln Town Car, was defective because the fuel tank was behind the rear axle.(ESPN.com/AP)(5-20-2005)
