A judge in Georgia has awarded more than $56 million to the family of Beth Buchanan, a 23-year-old Ph.D. student killed by an alleged drunk driver in 2023. Buchanan died while driving her mother to the Atlanta airport when Cesar Raudales Macias allegedly drove the wrong way on a highway and crashed head-on into her car. The family described the judgment as symbolic, not expecting payment from the fugitive defendant.
Beth Buchanan was driving her mother, Julie Olson-Buchanan, to the Atlanta airport around 3 a.m. on February 13, 2023, along University Parkway near Patrick Mill Road SW in Winder, Georgia, about 40 miles from downtown Atlanta. Cesar Raudales Macias, then 25, allegedly made an illegal U-turn and drove the wrong way, slamming head-on into Buchanan's Kia Soul. The collision was so severe that a witness thought the car had exploded, according to the lawsuit filed in 2024. Buchanan died at the scene, while her mother suffered serious injuries requiring weeks in the hospital and endured profound emotional trauma, including a heartbreaking 911 call where she checked on her daughter.
