Cops still unsure how car ended up in a tree, with dead woman inside

City police yesterday were still trying to determine what led to a fatal crash early Thursday morning that left a 34-year-old woman dead in her Infiniti stuck in a tree.

The woman was identified by 6 ABC as Lateisha Johnson, but police declined to identify her, saying that her next of kin hadn't been notified.

Police found Johnson in the tree more than 12 hours after her 15-year-old daughter was found wandering along the Schuylkill Expressway. The teen remained in stable condition at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

In 2004, Johnson was arrested and charged with homicide by vehicle, according to court records.

She pleaded no contest and was sentenced to one to six years, court records showed. Neighbors told 6 ABC that she was released from prison earlier this year.

Alcohol is not believed to have been a factor in this crash, but testing will be done to confirm that, said Capt. Mike Murphy of the Accident Investigation District.

He said it appears that Johnson might have been going too fast to negotiate the turn on the Expressway near the Route 1 connector or decided at the last second to make the turn and rode over the guard rail, into an embankment and onto a tree.

After she was taken to the hospital Thursday morning, John- son's daughter first told investigators she had been abducted, Murphy said. "She wasn't very lucid and she was in and out of consciousness," Murphy said.

Hospital staffers later told police that the girl had told them she had been in a car accident. State Police then found Johnson's body.