Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin P. Holihan recently announced a no contest plea to a 2022 double fatal crash in Whitehall Township.

Whitehall High School student Mia G. Due, 16, was killed in the July 31 crash at the intersection of Mechanicsville and MacArthur roads.

Christian Joel Gonzalez Santiago, 28, of Allentown, pleaded no contest March 11 to involuntary manslaughter, a misdemeanor of the first degree. All remaining charges against Gonzalez Santiago were withdrawn at the hearing before Judge Douglas G. Reichley.

Involuntary manslaughter carries a possible maximum sentence of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Sentencing was deferred to April 12.

Whitehall police were called to the crash site approximately 6:45 p.m. July 31, 2022. The posted speed limit for that stretch of roadway is 40 mph, and at the time the crash occurred, the weather was clear, Holihan said.

The crash involved a 2017 Jeep Renegade driven by a 17-year-old juvenile and a motorcycle driven by 42-year-old Jose Estrada-Estrada, of Reading.

Both Estrada-Estrada and Mia G. Due, a passenger in the Jeep, were pronounced dead at the scene. Both died from multiple blunt force traumas, and their deaths were ruled an accident by the Lehigh County coroner.

Video from surveillance cameras along MacArthur Road show that, just before the crash, Estrada-Estrada and Santiago were traveling at a high rate of speed in excess of 80 mph.

The investigation revealed both motorcycles appeared to be engaged in an “exhibition of speed or acceleration,” according to Holihan, adding “the commonwealth alleges the crash occurred as a direct result of the motorcycles racing on MacArthur Road and that, if they had not been racing each other, the crash would not have happened and neither victim would have died.”

The case was investigated by Whitehall Township Police and the Lehigh County Crash Reconstruction Team and was prosecuted by Chief Deputy District Attorney V. Paul Bernardino III.