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Cranberry Township man pleads guilty in fatal Beaver County crash

A Cranberry Township man accused of killing two people in a June crash in Beaver County while driving under the influence and speeding through a red traffic light has pleaded guilty to homicide by vehicle charges.

Israel Tun Cooch, 46, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Beaver County Common Pleas Court to two felony counts of homicide by vehicle while DUI and homicide by vehicle; three felony counts of aggravated assault by vehicle by DUI, aggravated assault by vehicle and accidents involving death or injury while not licensed; two misdemeanor counts of DUI and five summary traffic violations.

He is being held in the Beaver County Jail without bail.

Beaver Falls police said at 3:20 p.m. on June 29 Tun Cooch was driving a gray Dodge Ram 1500 at 84 mph in a 25 mph zone before running a red light at the intersection of 11th Street and 7th Avenue and striking a red Nissan Altima, killing two people in the car and injuring a pedestrian.

The driver of the Nissan, Robert Lance Jr., 25, was unresponsive and bleeding from the ear when he was removed from the vehicle He died while en route to UPMC Presbyterian in Pittsburgh. The passenger, 23-year-old Sheylee Young Davis, died at the scene.

After being hit, the Altima was pushed into the sidewalk and trapped a pedestrian underneath it. The pedestrian, 48-year-old Carrie Koch, was trapped from the waist down and could not move her lower extremities after the car was lifted and she was pulled out from under it, police said.

Police found a glass Modelo beer bottle with a small amount of liquid under the driver’s seat of Tun Cooch’s truck. He appeared to be having pain and was loaded into an ambulance then flown by helicopter to UPMC Presbyterian.

Police said Tun Cooch was not asked to submit to a field sobriety test at the scene due to his possible injuries and because the other injured people needed attention.

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