Speed, suspected impairment in fatal Greensboro crash, two passengers injured

Martin Luther King Jr. Drive was shut down for more than six hours Saturday after a violent crash near South Benbow Road killed one man and sent two passengers to the hospital with serious injuries.

Greensboro police said dispatch got the call around 2:30 a.m. April 11, and officers initially closed Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in both directions between Cambridge Street and Bothwell Street while investigators worked the scene. The roadway reopened by about 9 a.m., ending a traffic disruption that stretched through the early morning commute.

Police identified the driver as Jefferson Lumby Zeledon, 29, of Greensboro. Investigators said Zeledon was driving an Acura RSX after an earlier hit-and-run in downtown Greensboro and then drove recklessly at a high rate of speed down South Benbow Road before reaching the T-intersection with Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

At the intersection, police said, the Acura struck a parked Chevrolet Cobalt. The car flipped and came to rest in the woods. Zeledon died at the scene. Two passengers in his vehicle were taken by ambulance to a local hospital with serious injuries.

Police said speed was a factor in the crash and impairment is suspected. The Greensboro Police Department’s Crash Reconstruction Unit is continuing the investigation as officers piece together the sequence that led from downtown Greensboro to the crash site on one of the city’s busiest corridors. Earlier emergency reports said four people were transported after the Martin Luther King Jr. Drive crash, underscoring how quickly the wreck spread injuries across the scene before the fatal outcome was identified.