HINESVILLE, Ga. — Authorities have filed vehicular homicide charges against a Panama City Beach man who they said crashed his car and killed his wife, Georgia State Patrol (GSP) officials reported.
Gerard Lucien Pepin, 62, has been charged with first-degree vehicular homicide after an October wreck in Long County, Ga., ejected his wife, 59-year-old Gina Marie Pepin, from the vehicle. He is being held without bond in the Liberty County, Ga., Detention Center, as Long County does not have a facility.
Gerard and Gina Pepin were driving in a 2007 Ford Mustang on U.S. 301 near George Swindell Road in Long County, a rural area just southwest of Fort Stewart, when the vehicle veered off the highway and crashed into a wooded area, according to GSP reports.
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Neither of the victims was wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident, officers reported.
Gina Pepin was pronounced dead at the scene, while Gerard Pepin was airlifted to Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah.
Georgia authorities said they were already on the lookout for the Mustang after a housekeeper at the Richmond Hill hotel, where the couple had been staying, found suspicious items in their room and called police. Reports said the couple departed the hotel at 10:30 a.m. and crashed shortly after noon.
Gerard Pepin, a former psychotherapist to recovering addicts in Callaway, was out on bond stemming from a case in Volusia County in which he was charged with blackmailing a patient for sex in June.
The case is still under investigation by the Georgia State Patrol, Richmond Hill Police Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.