Steidel prelim today

Waynesboro resident Jason Steidel, 18, will appear in Augusta County General District Court today for a preliminary hearing on felony charges of driving under the influence and involuntary manslaughter in a December 12 wreck that killed Crimora resident Timothy Moran, 19.

State police estimate Steidel's 2002 Ford Mustang was traveling 100 mph on Route 612 near Crimora when the vehicle went off the right side of the road on a slight curve. The driver overcorrected, and the car flipped several times, smashing into a fence. Moran was ejected from the vehicle.

Two other people riding in the car were injured, and there is some dispute about who was actually behind the wheel.

Zachary Carpenter, 20, one of the other passengers, told an Augusta County magistrate a month after the crash that Steidel was not the driver, as he had previously maintained. Carpenter changed his story in another statement before the magistrate a short time later.