Michigan officials have filed an arrest warrant for the relative of a teenager accused of killing an 18-year-old swimmer in a horrific crash. The victim’s parents are demanding that the driver’s mother be held accountable for the tragedy.
Flynn MacKrell was killed instantly last November when then 16-year-old Kiernan Tague lost control of his mother’s BMW while driving more than 100 miles per hour in a 25-mph residential area of Grosse Pointe.
The MacKrells say their son’s death could have been prevented by Kiernan’s mother, Elizabeth Puleo-Tague, a Jesuit minister. She reportedly knew Kiernan was speeding but failed to keep him away from her BMW.
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that Gross Pointe police have applied for an arrest warrant for a relative of Kiernan, though they could not confirm whether it was his mother, Elizabeth.
“He had no regard for the safety of his passengers, no regard for the safety of pedestrians, and the mother knew that,” Flynn’s father, Thad Mackrell, said. Good morning America on Wednesday.
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that Gross Pointe police have applied for an arrest warrant for a relative of Kiernan, pictured
Elizabeth Puleo-Tague is accused of failing to take reasonable steps to prevent her child from hurting others after she became aware of his speeding, as evidenced by several texts
“Any reasonable person would have done something very, very simple: they would have taken the keys, but they didn’t, and our son is dead.”
Kiernan has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of his friend, but the MacKrells want his mother held responsible as well.
“Every day we wake up in shock and disbelief that our beloved Flynn is gone,” said Anne Vanker, the star swimmer’s grieving mother.
Flynn MacKrell, pictured, was killed instantly last November when then 16-year-old Kiernan Tague lost control of his mother’s BMW while driving faster than 100 miles per hour in a residential area with a 25-mile-per-hour speed limit.
The MacKrells point to the case of Oxford shooter Ethan Crumbley, whose parents were convicted of involuntary manslaughter earlier this year in a landmark case for supplying the gun he used to kill four people.
Kiernan lost control of the vehicle five minutes later while driving at 105 mph, hitting first a pole and then a tree. The force of the impact destroyed his mother’s BMW X3 M and killed Flynn, a standout swimmer at the University of Dayton.
Kiernan escaped with his life, but is now out on bail awaiting trial after being charged with second-degree murder in March. His trial is scheduled for February 2025.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Elizabeth for comment on this story.
Elizabeth’s employer, University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, declined to comment on Wednesday when contacted by DailyMail.com.
As previously reported, Elizabeth is being investigated by police after text messages emerged that showed she was aware of her son’s speeding, with intimate knowledge of the incident via a GPS app called Life360.
Flynn’s parents previously told The Detroit Free Press that Elizabeth should face criminal charges. His mother Anne responded with shock: “It’s like she gave him an AR-15.”
Elizabeth wrote one of the texts to Kiernan on September 14, 2023, two months before the crash: “Take it easy now!”
This happened after the then 16-year-old boy was caught driving the family’s Audi coupe at 208 km/h.
“I have screenshots of you… going 123 mph… I’m terrified,” read another.
“He had no regard for the safety of his passengers, no regard for the safety of pedestrians, and the mother knew that,” Flynn’s father, Thad Mackrell, told Good Morning America on Wednesday.
Flynn’s parents, Anne Vanker and Thad Mackrell, want the messages to show that Elizabeth failed to take reasonable steps to prevent her child from hurting others.
They wrote in a letter to local prosecutors: ‘[Kiernan] kept driving too fast, and mother knew it.
Furthermore, a few weeks after sending the texts, Elizabeth, the pastor at a local Catholic school, bought herself a brand new BMW. She then gave her son access to the BMW, despite the car being capable of speeds of 177 mph.
In addition to speeding, Kiernan also had a history of bad behavior, including attacking his mother in 2020.
The violations were discovered by Grosse Pointe City police officers, who wrote a report detailing the 20-plus violations and problems the car had at home before he took the BMW on its fateful final drive while his mother was in Canada.
One investigator wrote the following about the “extensive” text messages the two collected during this investigation: “There was a lot of discussion about Kiernan taking/using his mother’s credit card without permission, being out at night without permission, and Kiernan’s reckless driving.”
The investigator added: ‘The messages between the two suggest that Kiernan’s mother has little to no control over Kiernan.
‘Kiernan routinely drove recklessly and took/used his mother’s credit cards without permission, despite his mother’s repeated orders not to do so.’
Another message cited was a text message from the mother to her 16-year-old son on October 2, 2023, just over a month before the crash.
Kiernan was driving over 100 miles per hour in a 25 mile per hour zone when he crashed his mother’s brand new BMW X3 M on November 17, 2023
It said, “Would you like to get a bottle of wine??… Here you go!” to which Kiernan replied, “Sure.”
A week later, his mother sent him a screenshot of a website explaining the penalties for having a fake ID.
In 2020, police responded to a call from the mother, who claimed her son “had just attacked her and fled,” officers wrote.
The report goes on to describe how the incident unfolded: Kiernan was picked up from his friend’s house and became angry with his mother.
“While Kiernan was in the front seat, he turned around and began hitting his mother (who was in the back seat) and even bit her on the hand,” an officer wrote.
Kiernan, in turn, was arrested for domestic violence and held briefly in the Wayne County Juvenile Hall.
In November last year, a few days before the accident, another fight broke out between the two, this time at home, when Kiernan broke a table after his mother refused to let him use one of her two cars.
“I just asked you to take your car… and you refused. Now I’m late and we have a broken table,” Kiernan texted on Nov. 3, 2023, according to the report seen by the Free Press.
He also apologized: “I’m sorry about your table.”
Within two weeks, the accident occurred. According to police, most of the calls they received about Kiernan were complaints that he was losing control at home.
“His mother repeatedly told officers she was afraid of Kiernan,” a detective wrote, adding that the last time they visited the family’s home was Aug. 30 of last year.
The reason for the visit was ‘because [Kiernan] screamed and threw things in the house because his mother refused to give him an American Express Gold Card.’
Elizabeth, the campus chaplain at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School, bought a brand new BMW a few weeks after sending those texts and let her son have access to it, despite the fact that the BMW could reach speeds of 177 mph. Stock BMW X3 M pictured above
The Mackrells are now using the conversations between mother and son as evidence that Elizabeth knew for months that her son was driving recklessly but did nothing about it.
Speaking to the Free Press, she said Elizabeth also owns a 2015 Subaru Forrester, but she let her son drive the much more powerful Audi and later the BMW, even after warning him about what he was doing.
However, buying the BMW and leaving the keys behind so he could take them freely was the worst offense, she said, likening the prospect to giving the unruly teen a loaded assault rifle.
“She was sitting on a ticking time bomb,” Vanker told the newspaper, eight months after her son’s death.