DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — We have new details about what the suspected driver, accused of crashing into a beach toll booth and killing a worker, was doing before the crash.
It happened just after 12:30 Monday afternoon on Dunlawton Blvd. in Daytona Beach Shores.
Sheriff Mike Chtiwood stated that Tammie Joe Baker was in the toll booth for under a minute before her vehicle collided head-on, probably causing her instant death.
Multiple angles from cameras at nearby condos show a black truck just before it barrels down the approach and crashes into the beach toll booth.
Deputies said the suspected driver is 35-year-old Deanna Harrell. Her truck was reported by multiple 911 callers who said it was driving in the wrong direction and hitting mailboxes.
Two of those calls came in minutes before the toll booth was hit.
“Tammie Joe enters the booth at 12:38 and at 12:40 she’s dead,” said Sheriff Mike Chitwood.
Chitwood said Harrell works as a beach vendor and left because the weather was bad. She then went straight to a bar where she had multiple drinks.
Harrell has no criminal history but did have risk protection order filed against her in 2025, forcing her to give up all of her guns. The truck she was driving is registered to her dad, and her last known address is a state park.
Baker’s family is struggling to comprehend her death.
“It’s hard to hear like people just talking about it and it’s like you don’t even know that was my mom,” said her daughter Louella Harris.
The Sheriff said Harrell is currently being held in a mental health facility because she threatened suicide. Deputies are waiting to serve a warrant for vehicular homicide, and they’re also waiting to serve a search warrant to get more evidence out of the truck she was driving.
Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.