A man is facing a murder charge after he made his girlfriend’s “unruly” 5-year-old son exit his car in the dark along an Alabama highway – where the boy was fatally struck by another vehicle.
Bryan Starr, a 35-year-old active-duty Army sergeant at Fort Benning in Georgia, is accused of displaying a reckless disregard for the safety of his longtime girlfriend’s son Austin Birdseye, who died in hospital Sunday after being hit on Alabama Highway 165, the Ledger-Enquirer reported.
Starr told investigators the boy began acting “unruly” while traveling along the road in his Dodge Charger, leading him to pull into a church parking lot and order the child to get out of the vehicle in the rain and darkness.
The soldier said he then lost sight of Austin until noticing several other cars had stopped along the highway, where the boy was struck by an oncoming Toyota Avalon, Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor told reporters Monday.
Taylor underlined that the driver of the Toyota was not at fault.
“There’s no indication that they had any chance of not hitting the little guy,” the sheriff said.
Austin was hit just two miles from his home in Fort Mitchell, which his mom, Christina Birdseye, shares with the soldier.
“What do you say to that?” Taylor asked reporters. “What is your thought process when you tell a 5-year-old child to get out of the car on a rainy night, because they were being loud in the car?”
Calling the incident “just heartbreaking,” Taylor indicated that state troopers will conduct the accident investigation while the sheriff’s office handles the murder probe.
Alabama law allows a person to be charged with murder if they “recklessly engage in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to a person other than himself or herself, and thereby causes the death of another person.”
Starr – a sergeant first class from Marengo, Illinois, with 17 years of service, including a combat deployment to Iraq – has turned himself in to the Russell County Sheriff’s Office, WTVM reported.
He is currently assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 16th Cavalry Regiment, 316th Cavalry Brigade, Fort Benning spokesman Ben Garrett confirmed in a statement late Monday.
“We are deeply saddened by this tragic event and extend our heartfelt condolences to the family of the deceased,” Garrett said.
Starr will be released on bond after he’s processed through jail, Sheriff Taylor told the Ledger-Enquirer.