Alex Tougher To Be Bound Over To District Court On One Vehicular Homicide Charge

A case involving a Casper man facing a vehicular homicide charge will be heading to court.

A judge has ruled that there is probable cause to bound Alex Tougher over to district court.

Prosecutors say during the early morning hours of December 19th, Tougher was driving a Ford Explorer on the freeway ramp from the East-Bound 20-26 bypass, to Southbound I-25, when he lost control of the vehicle and rolled it down an embankment.

The incident ended up killing Lydia Simmons Pace.

At Tougher's preliminary hearing, Trooper Doug Baren testified that the vehicle was going an estimated eighty-two miles per hour on the ramp, when it swerved to the left, then over-corrected to the right before going down the embankment, rolling over two and one-half times during the process.

Simmons Pace was ejected from the vehicle and was pronounced dead on the scene.

Investigators found blood on the drivers side headliner, which ended up belong to Tougher, along with several alcohol containers and later found security footage from the near-by Natrona County Detention Center, which had recorded the incident at about 12-45 am that day.

Investigator Robert Nelson with the Natrona County Sheriff's Office testified that he eventually found Tougher, along with a third person, Gregory D’Arezzo, who was also in the vehicle at the time of the incident.

D'Arezzo told investigators that he along with Tougher and Simmons Pace had been drinking prior to the rollover.

Tougher's defense argued that when the incident happened,  D'Arezzo...who was in the back-seat, reached forward to do something with the CD player in the vehicle, when he bumped Tougher, causing him to lose control.

Tougher is in jail on two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars bond and is awaiting his arraignment.