She had just stopped for gas. She sent her family a message telling them she loved them. Minutes later, Lauryn Marie Akey was gone — killed by a drunk driver who turned his truck directly into oncoming traffic on an interstate highway, ending the life of a 21-year-old University of South Florida student who was weeks away from her senior year.
The crash happened just after 1 a.m. on Sunday, May 17, 2026, on Interstate 75 in Charlotte County, Florida. Akey was driving home after attending a wedding celebration. She never made it.
Who Lauryn Akey Was
Born on October 21, 2004, Lauryn Akey grew up in Rochelle, Illinois, where she graduated from Rochelle Township High School in 2023. She was a cheerleader known for her ability to draw people toward her — not simply cheer from a distance.
After graduation, she relocated to Florida with her family and enrolled at USF in Tampa as an Exercise Science major. She carried a 4.0 GPA and was on a direct path toward a career in nursing.
Her weekends reflected someone who had already figured out what made her happy. She went fishing with her boyfriend, Garrett Day, chased sunsets on the water, and attended every Taylor Swift concert she could get to. At home, she had three dogs she adored — a Golden Retriever named Sanibel, an Australian Shepherd named Zues, and a Havanese named Miley. To her brothers, she was simply Sissy.
Her mother, Melinda Mucho, described her in a single word.
“She was so kind,” Mucho said. “I just want everyone to know who she is and her spirit. And how she loved everyone.”
The Night She Died
On the evening of May 16, Akey attended a wedding and was driving south on I-75 heading home. She pulled over to fill her gas tank. While stopped, she sent her family a message — she had gotten gas, she told them, and she loved them.
That was the last message they received from her.
Just after 1 a.m., Florida Department of Transportation traffic cameras near mile marker 150 in Charlotte County captured what would later be entered as a criminal exhibit: a Ford F-150 executing a full U-turn directly into the northbound lanes of the interstate.
Akey had no time to react. Her vehicle was one of two struck head-on in the collision that followed. Florida Highway Patrol troopers arrived to find her gone. A woman in the second vehicle, along with her 12-year-old and 15-year-old passengers, suffered serious injuries. A third vehicle clipped debris from the crash but sustained only minor damage with no injuries reported.
The Man Behind the Wheel
Dennis Lee Olson, 53, of Lehigh Acres, Florida, was driving the F-150. When troopers administered a blood alcohol test, his level registered at 0.222 — nearly three times Florida’s legal limit of 0.08.
Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Ken Watson did not soften the assessment. “This is someone who made a horrible decision,” he said, “and it cost someone their life and seriously injured three other people.”
What emerged from Olson’s background made the loss harder to absorb. He held a Minnesota driver’s license, and court records from that state showed this was not his first offense. The South St. Paul Police Department had arrested him for a misdemeanor DWI in 2019. He served two years of probation and was required to complete a Mothers Against Drunk Driving course — which he completed. Seven years later, he got behind the wheel drunk again, after midnight, on a Florida interstate.
Olson now faces felony charges of vehicular homicide and DUI manslaughter. A Charlotte County judge ordered him held without bond. The state attorney’s office has indicated additional charges may still be filed, given that one of the children from the second vehicle required surgery.
Whether It Could Have Been Prevented
Trooper Watson answered that question directly.
“By planning ahead, this tragedy could have most certainly been avoided,” he said. “Now we have several families who have been destroyed, including the driver himself, who is now looking at several years behind bars.”
Larry Coggins, the state director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, noted that Olson had every option available to him that night — designated drivers, taxis, rideshare apps — and chose none of them.
Coggins also addressed the mindset behind impaired driving, pointing out that no one leaves home planning to cause a crash or take a life. The danger, he explained, begins the moment someone drinks, because alcohol rapidly strips away a person’s capacity to make rational decisions. The 2019 arrest, the completed course, the years in between — none of it held when it mattered most.
A Family’s Grief, and What They Want People to Know
For Mucho, the grief is immeasurable. But she has chosen to speak publicly because her daughter deserves to be known beyond the circumstances of her death.
“Her life was just on the horizon,” she said. “Her life was just getting started with her boyfriend. She was going to graduate next year, and I want everyone to see her and feel that.”
In the days following the crash, Akey’s friends created the hashtag #lovelikelauryn — a gathering place on social media where the people she touched have shared what she meant to them. Mucho has pointed anyone who didn’t know her daughter toward that space.
“You can feel it by looking at her smile,” she said. “I want everyone to see her and be like her. She was never mean to anybody. She brought people together — so many people together. Loved hard, loved so hard.”
On May 23, Mucho posted a video collage to Instagram showing Lauryn in the places she loved most — near water, near light, near the people who made her happy. In the caption she wrote: “She belonged where the water meets the sky. A drunk driver took her from us far too soon. So if you take anything from this video — don’t drink and drive…please! Fish on, baby girl. We’ll find you in every sunset on the water.”
Remembering Lauryn
Lauryn Marie Akey is survived by her mother Melinda Mucho; her father Jason Akey and stepmother Amy Akey; her stepfather Robert Mucho; her brothers Zachary, Maddox, Jaxon, and Avery Akey; her grandparents Julie Torgersen, Steven Peavy, and Jim Akey; and a wide circle of extended family and close friends.
A Celebration of Life Service will be held on May 30, 2026, at 10:30 a.m. at Grace Community Church, 4080 Lakewood Ranch Blvd N, Lakewood Ranch, FL 34240. Her family has asked everyone attending to wear bright, cheerful colors in her honor.
Her obituary closes with a line she would have loved — a Taylor Swift lyric that reads: “Long live all the magic we made.”
She was 21 years old. She had a 4.0 GPA, a plan for her future, a boyfriend she went fishing with, and three dogs waiting at home. She stopped for gas and told her family she loved them.
That should have been the end of an ordinary night.
