ALBANY — New York’s highest court upheld the murder convictions Thursday of three wrong-way drivers who caused deadly crashes, rejecting arguments they were too intoxicated to know the threat they posed.
The convictions of Martin Heidgen, Taliyah Taylor and Franklin McPherson hinged on prosecutors’ contention they acted with “depraved indifference to human life” in crashes that shared common threads: driving too fast in the wrong lane while under the influence.
Heidgen drove his pickup truck for miles the wrong way on Long Island’s Meadowbrook Parkway in 2005 and hit a limo, killing a 7-year-old flower girl, the driver, and injuring five others.
McPherson hit and killed the driver of a vehicle on the Southern State Parkway in 2007. Taylor sped naked down Staten Island’s Forest Avenue in 2006 and killed a pedestrian.