Family of 18-year-old killed in high-speed Michigan crash wants teen driver’s mother charged

Detroit — A teenager drove nearly 140 miles per hour just days before a high-speed crash in suburban Detroit last November that killed his friend, according to video obtained by CBS News this week. 

On Nov. 17, 2023, Flynn MacKrell, 18, was a passenger in a BMW X3 that crashed into a utility pole and tree minutes after he left his home in the city of Grosse Pointe Farms.

Flynn’s 16-year-old friend, Kiernan Tague, was behind the wheel and survived. Police say Tague was driving over 100 mph on a residential street where the speed limit was 25 mph.

“Every day I wake up and it literally feels like a horror show,” Anne Vanker, Flynn’s mother, told CBS News. 

MacKrell’s parents believe Tague’s mother, Elizabeth Puleo-Tague, could and should have stopped him.

“I think both of them should go to jail,” said Thad MacKrell, Flynn’s father, of Tague and his mother. 

“Gross negligence manslaughter for Elizabeth,” Vanker said.  

Investigators found cell phone videos on Tague’s phone showing a pattern of excessive speeding, matched they say by records from an app called Life 360 which his mother used to track his car in the weeks leading up to the crash. 

During a 17-day period, the app recorded that about a quarter of his trips involved speeds over 100 mph, and 10% involved speeds over 120 mph.

Police records showed that Tague’s mother was concerned about her son’s driving, texting him once that “it scares me to my bone,” and another time to “slow the f— down right now!”

Tague was charged in March with second-degree murder and remains out on bail. If found guilty, he could be sentenced at least partially as an adult. When contacted by CBS News, the family’s attorney had no comment, citing ongoing litigation.

Anne and Thad compare the case to that of Oxford, Michigan, school shooter Ethan Crumbley. Both his parents were separately convicted earlier this year for not securing the gun he used in the 2021 killing of four people.

CBS News legal contributor Jessica Levinson says she believes this case could be even stronger.

“She had months and months of knowledge of her son’s reckless driving,” Levinson said. “And she not only failed to take the keys away. She actually gave him a car that could go faster.”