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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe city of Evansville has agreed to pay $1.75 million to settle a woman’s lawsuit stemming from a 2017 police chase crash that killed her two children and her husband and left her seriously injured.
The Evansville City Council approved the appropriation Monday from the city’s insurance carrier — a step that allows the southwestern Indiana city to make the payout to the children’s mother, Janae Carter, the Evansville Courier & Press reported.
Princess Carter, 2, and 7-month-old Prince Carter were killed in November 2017 when a man being pursued by Evansville police crashed into the family’s car. Their father, Terence Barker, 26, died from head injuries about a month after the crash.
Janae Carter was seriously injured and became the only person in her family’s car to survive the crash in Evansville, about 170 miles southwest of Indianapolis. She was pregnant at the time of the crash and gave birth to a girl months later.
Carter sued the city in 2018 in Vanderburgh Superior Court, seeking damages and claiming her two children were wrongfully killed and she was seriously injured as a direct result of negligence from the driver, Frederick McFarland, and the city, acting through the Evansville Police Department.
Police officers believed McFarland was driving a car with a false license plate and tried to stop him. He fled, starting the pursuit that ended when his car slammed into the car Janae Carter was driving.
McFarland was sentenced to 15 years in prison in March 2020 after pleading guilty to four counts of resisting law enforcement.
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