Shannon Jill Katy Killed in Car Accident in Johnson County, TX
Johnson County, TX — July 30, 2023, Shannon Jill Katy was killed following a car accident at around 3:30 p.m. along Farm-to-Market 2280.
Preliminary details about the accident say that the crash happened in the area of the intersection of F.M. 2280 and Twin Creeks Road.
According to officials, 42-year-old Shannon Katy was in a Jeep Wrangler going northbound on F.M. 2280. While doing so, it appears a driver allegedly under the influence of drugs rear-ended the Jeep, forcing it off-road. There, the Jeep overturned. Authorities say that Katy was thrown from the vehicle. She was flown to a hospital but later died, details say.
In their statements, authorities also said specifically that the victim was thrown from the Jeep "despite wearing a seatbelt." However, they don't at all suggest how that came to pass. My concern is there may have been some kind of defect authorities are missing.
That happened in a wrongful death case I handled a while back where authorities saw the person thrown from the vehicle and automatically blamed them for not wearing a seatbelt (which fortunately authorities here seemed to avoid). But when we had an independent investigator look more closely at the evidence, it was proven that the victim had the seatbelt on, but the pretensioner failed, causing the driver to come loose despite doing everything they were supposed to.
Is it possible for something like this to happen despite everything working the way it's supposed to? Sure, but in their rightful attention paid to the driver who was allegedly on drugs when they caused this awful event, I'm worried they may have lost sight of other important factors that also need to be addressed.
