A 19-year-old Uniontown woman injured Monday in a one-vehicle crash along Route 43 in Fayette County died Wednesday in a Morgantown, W.Va., hospital.
Abby Check, a student at Penn State, The Eberly Campus, died at Ruby Memorial Hospital from injuries suffered in the crash.
State police in Uniontown said the crash occurred at 7:52 a.m. on Route 43 as Check was driving just south of Morgantown Road in Georges Township. Police said her car left the roadway, hit a guardrail and rolled onto its roof.
Emergency personnel from Fairchance had to extract Check from beneath the car, and she was airlifted to the hospital. She was a 2006 graduate of Uniontown Area Senior High School.
North Union
Motion seeks dismissal
of homicide charge
Attorneys for a Fayette County woman accused of fatally shooting a North Union man want a judge to dismiss a criminal homicide charge and suppress statements and evidence.
Johnna Marie Palya, 42, of 25 Nell St., Hopwood, is charged by state police in the Oct. 27 death of Barry Charles Pavlicko, 43.
According to the affidavit, Palya shot Pavlicko in the head in their North Union home on Aug. 26. Pavlicko died two months later at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, W.Va., where he had been undergoing treatment.
Public defender Jeffery Whiteko filed a motion seeking to have the case against Palya dismissed. Barring that, he wants statements she gave to police, as well as any evidence gathered from her residence, excluded from trial.
Whiteko contends prosecutors have not proved Palya had the intent to kill.
He wants her statements suppressed because she did not knowingly waive her right to self-incrimination.
Evidence taken from her residence should be excluded from trial, Whiteko indicated, because "there was no evidence to suggest to the officer that criminal activity was afoot" when police obtained a search warrant.
Whiteko's motion is to be presented in motions court Wednesday.
