Houston Chronicle by Eric Dexheimer 12/20/2019
Horrific car crash leads Montgomery County on hunt for doctors responsible for the most mayhem
CONROE — Sunday services had just let out on Sept. 20, 2015, when a 911 caller reported a car weaving on and off state highway 105.
Roland and Melinda Sedlmeier were heading home from Crossroads Baptist Church. Their children, Harley, 6, and 4-year-old Sofie, were in the backseat.
Ronald Cooper, the erratic driver, was returning from church, too, when his Hyundai clipped the back of the Sedlmeier’s small sedan, sending it skidding broadside into the path of a Jeep Wrangler. All four family members were killed instantly.
Cooper was described as disoriented and unsteady at the scene. There was no alcohol on his breath, but investigators discovered the cause of his impairment in his car; prescription pill bottles for Valium and oxycodone, a powerful opioid.
Cooper eventually was sentenced to 80 years in prison for causing the Sedlmeier family’s death. "After a lifetime of risks and peril, danger,†Melinda’s mother said, referencing the family’s Africa missionary work, “in the most civilized part of the United States in a suburban, tranquil area, the behavior of one man destroyed a precious family of four.â€
Yet law enforcement soon concluded there was more than just one man at fault. A Conroe police officer responding to the crash happened to recognize the name of the doctor who’d written his prescriptions.
More:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Horrific-car-crash-leads-Montgomery-County-on-14921686.php
