A Register man is behind bars after being charged with Homicide by Vehicle for a fatal crash on April 7.
35-year-old Erich Andrew Richter was booked in the Bulloch County Jail on a Homicide by Vehicle – 1st degree charge on April 16, 2024, according to jail records, as well as Serious Injury by Vehicle, Failure to Maintain Lane, and misdemeanor Obstruction of Law Enforcement.
The charges are an escalation from the previous charges on which Richter was booked into the Bulloch County Jail on April 7, 2024. All six of the charges stem from an arrest by the Georgia State Patrol. Traffic citations show Richter was charged with DUI (alcohol) – Less Safe, Open Container, and No Seatbelt on the day of the crash. Richter bonded out the same day, but a letter from Chief Assistant Solicitor General Judith Oglesby dated April 10, 2024 says she was made aware by the citing officer that felony warrants were forthcoming for Richter and subsequently the case would be transferred to Superior Court.
According to records currently available, Richter was driving a 2019 Polaris Razor SXS on Aden Lanier Road near Jim Waters Road at the time of the crash. Citations say it happened just after midnight on the morning of April 7. The crash resulted in the death of Jerrett Wilson, a husband and father of four from Savannah, who drowned when the vehicle overturned into a body of water.
The warrants allege:
- Homicide by Vehicle (felony) – Richter caused the unintentional death of another person while operating the Polaris Razor SXS while under the influence of alcohol. Richter’s actions caused the vehicle to exit the roadway and overturn into a body of water. The front seat passenger became entrapped, causing his death by drowning.
- Serious Injury by Vehicle (felony)
- Failure to Maintain Lane (misdemeanor)
- Willful Obstruction of a Law Enforcement Officer (misdemeanor) – Richter and his wife ‘fabricated’ a story about who was driving the night of the fatal crash and that Richter was ‘willfully being deceptive and withholding information)
Richter remains behind bars awaiting further court action. His attorney, Statesboro attorney Martha Hall, has filed motions for a bond and preliminary hearing on the matter, citing Richter as a full-time employee and the sole provider for his family. The case has been assigned to Judge Lovett Bennett.
Previous History
A search of Richter shows that Richter was one of the driver’s charged with DUI in a wreck that killed WTOC news anchor Don Logana in February 2017.
In that wreck, Richter was arrested by the South Carolina Highway Patrol on charges of Driving Under the Influence when he was driving a 2009 Mitsubishi Gallant with Logana and two others in November 2016. The car collided with a 2000 Dodge pickup driven by Cleveland Coleman on U.S. 17 in Jasper County near the Talmadge Bridge.
Coleman was also charged in that crash and was listed as the at-fault party due to his crossing the center line and driving under the influence. In 2018, a jury found Coleman ‘Not Guilty’ on all charges. Richter pleaded ‘Nolo Contendere,’ which means a plea by which a defendant in a criminal prosecution accepts conviction as though a guilty plea had been entered but does not admit guilt, in his DUI case.
