Man indicted in Lexington crash that left two dead, including 8-year-old
A Louisville man has been arrested and indicted in a deadly crash in Lexington last year that left two people dead, including an 8-year-old girl.
Uwezo Ndume, 31, was indicted in June on two counts of vehicular homicide under the influence of alcohol and one count of aggravated DUI. He was arrested Tuesday by the Louisville Metro Police Department and booked into the Louisville Metro Detention Center, according to the Lexington Police Department.
The crash happened late May 26, 2024, at Leestown Road and Citation Boulevard. Court documents say Ndume was speeding on outbound Leestown Road and ran a red light, colliding with a GMC Acadia occupied by a family of four.
Daleyza Ortiz, 8, was sitting in the rear driver’s side seat of the GMC and was ejected from the vehicle during the collision. She died at a hospital.
Two days after the crash, an occupant of Ndume’s vehicle, 71-year-old Kiza Nundu, died at University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital, according to court documents. Seven others were injured in the crash.
Ndume admitted to drinking two bottles of alcohol before the crash, according to his arrest citation. He showed slow movements and reactions while taking field sobriety tests and recorded a 0.055 blood alcohol concentration. That concentration was lower than the legal limit to drive — .08 — but it was recorded about an hour after the crash.
Court documents list alcohol involvement, disregarding a traffic control device and speeding as the factors in the crash. There was no avoidance maneuver detected from Ndume’s vehicle.
Ndume was originally charged with DUI. Court records indicate it was his first DUI offense.
Also, this past April, Ndume was pulled over in Warren County for driving on an expired vehicle registration, according to court documents. Ndume admitted to knowing about the expired registration and was released after being issued a citation.
Court records do not indicate if Ndume’s license was revoked despite the pending DUI charge.
Ndume is awaiting extradition to Fayette County to face his charges, police said. His bond is set at $21,000 — $10,000 each for the vehicular homicide charges, and $1,000 for the DUI charge, according to court records.
There have been two separate fatal crashes involving alcohol in Lexington this past week. On Sunday, 75-year-old Linda Johnson died at a hospital after being involved in a collision near Man o’ War Boulevard. The other driver involved, 65-year-old Stephen Barber, was charged with DUI.
Then on Tuesday, a pedestrian was hit and killed by a car near Liberty Road and Liberty Hill Drive. Bryce Daniel, 35, was arrested at the scene and was charged with DUI.
Victim’s parents suing alleged drunk driver
Ortiz’s parents, Otoniel Ortiz and Dora Luz Garcia Armenta, filed a lawsuit against Ndume on May 21, claiming negligence and wrongful death, according to court records.
Otoniel Ortiz and Armenta are also suing unknown defendants for giving Ndume alcohol and selling him drugs knowing that he was already intoxicated, the lawsuit says.
The crash caused Otoniel Ortiz and Armenta to suffer severe and permanent injuries, medical expenses, loss of consortium and mental anguish. The lawsuit says Armenta injuries will require future medical expenses and left her unable to work.
There is no hearing scheduled for the lawsuit.
The family also investigated the Acadia’s black box event data recorder to determine if Daleyza Ortiz was properly buckled into her seat in pursuit of possible additional litigation. Fred Peters, an attorney representing the family, told the Herald-Leader an expert analyzed the data recorder, but it could not determine if the seat belts were buckled.
Peters added that the family believes their daughter was properly buckled, but the severity of the collision was too severe.
“The expert we had review the black box said that the delta V force that her car received in the collision was so powerful that no car could have safely withstood this collision,” Peters said.
This story was originally published August 7, 2025 at 10:26 AM.
