Search fatalities

Samantha Russell

Age : 22

Gender : Female

Race : White

Date : 07/06/2021

Location : West Central Avenue & North Ridge Road

City : Wichita

County : Sedgwick

State : Kansas

Agency : Wichita Police Department (WPD)

Officer(s) :Not Disclosed

Cause of Death : Vehicle

Event : Bystander killed by police chase crash

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

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REASON FOR POLICE CHASE:
Armed-robbery investigation and erratic driving. Wichita police were investigating an armed robbery at a hotel in the 7500 block of West Taft and had taken one person connected to the investigation into custody near Maple and Ridge. Police were looking for a pickup truck that had left the area and was associated with the robbery investigation. At 4:59:16 p.m., a Wichita police officer saw the pickup driven by Javan Jermaine Ervin traveling erratically on Ridge Road. Thirteen seconds later, at 4:59:29 p.m., the officer pulled onto Ridge Road and began pursuing the truck. A police supervisor ordered the pursuit terminated 35 seconds later because of Ervin's speed and traffic conditions. The officer complied and turned around 13 seconds after the termination order.
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OFFICIAL NARRATIVE:
On 07/06/2021, 22-year-old Samantha Lee Russell of Derby was killed when a pickup truck that Wichita police had been pursuing crashed into her Mazda CX-3 at Central Avenue and Ridge Road. Russell, who was 33 weeks pregnant, was waiting to make a left turn when the truck struck her vehicle. Doctors delivered her son, Mac, approximately 35 minutes after the collision. He survived.
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The police encounter originated with an armed-robbery investigation at a hotel in the 7500 block of West Taft. Police located one man connected to the investigation near Maple and Ridge and took him into custody. Javan Jermaine Ervin drove away in a pickup truck. At 4:59:16 p.m., a Wichita officer saw Ervin driving erratically on Ridge Road. At 4:59:29 p.m., the officer pulled onto Ridge and began pursuing the truck.
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Ervin accelerated and began creating distance between his truck and the pursuing officer. At 5:00:04 p.m., only 35 seconds after the pursuit began, a police supervisor ordered the officer to terminate the chase because of Ervin's speed and traffic conditions. At 5:00:17 p.m., the officer made a U-turn and headed back toward the robbery investigation.
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Ervin continued north on Ridge Road after police terminated the pursuit. At Central Avenue, he approached a red traffic signal at high speed. Samantha was southbound on Ridge in her Mazda, waiting at the intersection to turn east onto Central.
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Ervin drove through the red light and struck multiple vehicles. The collision sent his pickup over the median and airborne into Samantha's Mazda with enough force to shear away the upper portion of her vehicle. Ervin's truck rolled for more than 300 feet, and its rear axle and wheels were torn from the vehicle and thrown into another car. A responding officer later described the crash scene as “total destruction.”
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The first 911 call reporting the collision reached emergency dispatch at 5:01:01 p.m., 44 seconds after the pursuing officer had turned around and 57 seconds after the supervisor ordered the pursuit terminated. The entire sequence from the officer beginning the pursuit to the first crash call lasted one minute and 32 seconds.
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Samantha suffered catastrophic injuries and was transported to Wesley Medical Center. She was 33 weeks pregnant with her first child. Her son Mac was delivered by emergency Cesarean section approximately 35 minutes after the collision. Court records later established that Mac was delivered one minute after Samantha arrived in the trauma bay and that Samantha was pronounced dead three minutes later.
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Mac survived but suffered oxygen deprivation associated with the crash and emergency delivery. Samantha's husband, Brandon Russell, later said that Mac experienced developmental delays as a result. At Ervin's 2023 trial, Mac—then approaching his second birthday—attended court with his father and maternal grandmother.
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Samantha was born on Christmas Day 1998 in Sacile, Italy, to Rogelio and Lischen Castorena. She graduated from high school in Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 2017 and married Brandon Russell on 11/08/2019. Brandon served in the U.S. Air Force. The couple had recently purchased a house and were preparing for Mac's expected birth on 08/13/2021.
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Samantha worked as a Realtor with JPAR in Derby and also created and sold hand-stamped jewelry. Her family described her as highly creative; she enjoyed cooking, baking, jewelry-making and other crafts and was constantly working on new projects. Her husband said she was extraordinarily excited about becoming a mother.
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Ervin escaped from the wrecked pickup through its windshield and ran from the crash scene. Police later found him hiding in the clubhouse of a nearby apartment complex and arrested him. Investigators recovered two 9 mm handguns from the pickup. Video evidence presented at his later trial included police body-camera footage, cameras along the pursuit route and cameras at the intersection that recorded the fatal collision.
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Wichita police asked the Kansas Highway Patrol to investigate the fatal collision because Wichita officers had participated in the events preceding the crash. KHP determined that Ervin had been traveling north on Ridge at high speed and entered the Central Avenue intersection against the red light.
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Ervin's first trial ended in a mistrial in April 2023 after a juror improperly shared information obtained from news reports with other jurors. A second jury convicted Ervin in June 2023 of first-degree felony murder, alternative second-degree murder, reckless aggravated battery, fleeing or attempting to elude police, criminal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and driving with a suspended license.
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Ervin was sentenced to life imprisonment. He appealed his convictions to the Kansas Supreme Court. On 04/11/2025, the court affirmed his convictions, finding no reversible error. The court's published decision provides a detailed reconstruction of the pursuit, collision, physical evidence and video evidence presented at trial.
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Five years after Samantha's death, her father, Roger Castorena, continued maintaining a memorial he built for her. He described his daughter as creative, hardworking and entrepreneurial and said that becoming a mother and wife had been central to what she wanted from her life. The memorial was also intended to give Mac a tangible connection to the mother he never had the opportunity to know.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND:
The Wichita Police Department officer who pursued Ervin on Ridge Road has not been publicly identified in the contemporary reporting, subsequent trial coverage or Kansas Supreme Court decision. The documented pursuit timeline establishes that a Wichita police supervisor ordered the officer to terminate the pursuit 35 seconds after it began and that the officer complied, making a U-turn 13 seconds later.
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DISPOSITION:
Javan Jermaine Ervin was convicted of first-degree felony murder and multiple related offenses arising from the pursuit and crash that killed Samantha Russell. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Kansas Supreme Court affirmed his convictions on 04/11/2025.

SOURCE LINKS :

1. https://www.ksn.com/news/local/one-critically-injured-in-west-wichita-vehicle-crash/
2. https://www.ksn.com/news/crime/man-convicted-in-crash-that-killed-pregnant-woman-sentenced-to-life-in-prison/
3. https://www.ksn.com/news/local/wichita-father-celebrates-birth-of-his-son-while-mourning-his-22-year-old-wife-killed-in-crash-following-chase/
4. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/229303430/samantha_lee-russell