Left: Jayden Wallace (Hall County Sheriff”s Office). Right: Jason Hughes, top right, with his wife and two sons (GoFundMe).
Five Georgia teens decided to pull off the age-old prank of TPing or “rolling” a house but the typically harmless fun turned deadly when one of them ran over the homeowner who went outside to confront them, cops say.
Jayden Ryan Wallace, 18, stands accused of first-degree vehicular homicide and reckless driving in the death of 40-year-old Jason Hughes in Gainesville. According to a press release from the Hall County Sheriff’s Office obtained by Law&Crime, Wallace and four other teens drove to a home in the 4400 block of North Gate Drive around 11:30 p.m. on Friday to throw toilet paper on the trees on the property.
Hughes came out of the home to confront the teens, who then scrambled into two vehicles to flee. Hughes tripped and fell onto the road and Wallace allegedly ran him over in his pick-up truck. The teens stayed behind to help as deputies rushed to the scene.
Paramedics took Hughes to the hospital where he died.
Four other 18-year-olds — Elijah Tate Owens, Aiden Hucks, Ana Katherine Luque, and Ariana Cruz — face misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass and littering on private property.
Hughes was a beloved math teacher and coach at North Hall High School.
The school opened its doors on Saturday to help students mourn their teacher.
“He was always there for you, like well-known guy, well-respected in the community, very beloved by our school and the students always had nothing but great things to say about Coach Hughes,” Shayden Maynor, a former student of Hughes’, told local news station WANF. “He’s helped me through some pretty hard times, too, and he was just a great guy all the way around. It’s a very sad tragedy of what our community has lost.”
A school district spokesperson sent out the following statement to local media:
“Our hearts are broken. Jason Hughes was a loving husband, a devoted father, a passionate teacher, mentor, and coach who was loved and respected by students and colleagues. He gave so much to so many in numerous ways. Our hearts and prayers go out to his wife and family.”
Hughes was a married father of two. A GoFundMe shared by the school district had already raised more than $100,000 as of Sunday morning. The description said he was a “blessing to so many, and his untimely passing will be indescribably difficult for his wife and two young boys for years to come.”
A sheriff’s office spokesperson told Law&Crime he wasn’t sure why the teens picked Hughes’ home to prank or if the teens were current or former students of his.
Wallace remains in the Hall County Jail without bond.
