Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'Party Teen' Kills Friend in Drunk Driving Crash

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Hannah Hackemeyer has been sentenced for driving drunk and killing one of her best friends, Sophia Lekiachvili, in February 2024. Sophia was 18 and had been hanging out with Hannah at the home of one of their friends, Ananya Rao, in DeKalb County, Georgia. Ananya was also injured in the crash and her parents face involuntary manslaughter charges in Sophia's death as they're accused of allowing the teens to drink at their home. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through the latest in the case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Stay Informed, Stay Safe – Check Public Records with TruthFinder now at  https://www.truthfinder.com/lccrimefixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hannah was speeding more than 60 miles per hour over the limit, hitting 98 just one second before the crash. The car's computer also revealed she never tapped the brakes. An 18-year-old girl is killed in a crash by one of her best friends who was driving drunk after leaving a party. Now that friend, Hannah Hackmire, has learned her punishment as parents also face charges in this case. There is no greater responsibility in life for a parent and a child and to keep them safe. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Sophia Leschavelli. She was a beautiful 18-year-old girl from DeKalb, County, Georgia. Her parents described her as kind, thoughtful, and on the brink of an exciting future. All of that came to an end on February 24, 2024. Sophia, whose parents and friends called her Sophie, was killed in a crash while hanging out with her friends. Sophie's friend, 18-year-old Hannah Hackamire, was behind the wheel.

DeKalb County's district attorney said when announcing charges against Hannah Hackamire that when she lost control of the car, causing it to flip, the crash killed Sophie, who was in the passenger seat. When police arrived, they found a blue Mazda CX-5 flipped over. upside down in the roadway. The driver, Hannah Hackmeyer and her backseat passenger, Anana Rao, were able to crawl out of the vehicle. But Sophia Leskevelli was trapped in the front passenger seat. First responders extracted Sophia from the car and rushed her to the hospital where she later died from her injuries. Data recovered from the car's airbag control module showed that Hannah was speeding more than 60 miles per hour over the limit, hitting 98 just one second before the crash.

The car's computer also revealed she never tapped the brakes. Using both a portable breath test and a blood test, investigators determined Hannah Hackmire was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the crash with a blood alcohol concentration, of 0.046, more than twice the legal limit for someone under the age of 21. When police arrived just after midnight, it was a horrific scene. The three friends, Hannah, Sophie, and Ananya had been drinking at Ananya's home, which had a reputation as being the party house. The investigation revealed, this wasn't just a one-time thing. This type of behavior was common.

It was frequent. Parties on Halloween, homecoming, even though. the last day of school were hosted at the Rouse home, each time the parents allowed underage drinking. While Hannah Hackmeyer was the one behind the wheel that terrible night, we have determined that she was not the only one responsible for what happened. Through our investigation, we learned that Hannah, Sophia, and Ananya had spent the evening at February 23rd at Ananya's house. The friends shared a bottle of wine in the kitchen in plain view of Ananya's parents, Sumant, and Andita Rao. At around 1145 p.m., the teens told Mr. Rao they wanted to go for a drive.

Ananya's parents knew the girls had been drinking, but they still let them get into a car and leave the house with an open bottle of wine in the front seat. less than 30 minutes later, a little more than a half mile away, that decision would prove deadly. DA Sherry Boston announced the charges, Hannah Hackmire. She was charged with three counts of homicide by vehicle driving under the influence and reckless driving. The party house parents, Samant and Anandita Rao, they were charged with involuntary manslaughter. Hannah Hackmire posted bail more than $25,000 and was placed on home confinement. was back in December of 2024. And Indita pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Her husband, Samantha, did the same thing. We have been in touch with Sophia's family to notify them about today's developments and will continue to keep them updated as these cases progress through the court system. They respectfully request privacy at this time and I ask that everyone honor their wishes. There is no greater responsibility in life

than for a parent and a child and to keep them safe. As a prosecutor and a mother of two teenage daughters, I have never seen a more egregious disregard for safety and well-being of young people, as I have in this case. Mr. and Mrs. Rouse's choices that night led to the death of a teenage girl. This crash was foreseeable,

consequence of allowing underage drinking in their home. and worse, allowing someone who they knew had consumed alcohol to drive. But our investigation revealed that that night was not an anomaly. Sumant and Anandita Rao have a longstanding repeated pattern of allowing teenagers to drink in their home, Halloween, homecoming, the last day of school. The Rao's home was the party house. where teens could freely consume alcohol without interference from the adults who live there,

the adults who should have accepted responsibility. It is a miracle that nothing happened prior to February 24th. We partner with TruthFinder for the public record searches that we do here on law and crime. I actually looked up Hannah Hackamire and her case shows up on TruthFinder. TruthFinder is really great. It saves us research time so we can get extra information for you, while we report on crime. You can use TruthFinder too. Type in a name to find addresses, criminal history, and more. It's our go-to tool for checks and one of the largest search services in the U.S. With a subscription, you get unlimited confidential searches to check on new neighbors,

vet people you meet online, or find someone to reconnect with. You can even look up registered sex offenders who live near you or do a background check on yourself. I really love that. So stay informed, stay safe. Check public records with TruthFinder now at TruthFinder.com slash LC Crime Fix. Sophie's LinkedIn page stated that the Lakeside High School students started working as a data manager and analyst at Tinkermeisters Incorporated. Sophie loved working with data and developed a wide range of skills since being at the company. Before that, she worked full time at an adventure camp in Germany as a camp counselor. Sophie was always up for a challenge.

Now nearly two years after Sophie's horrific death, Hannah Hackamire, her friend, has learned her punishment. She pleaded guilty to homicide by vehicle in the first degree, serious injury by vehicle, reckless driving and possession of an open container of alcoholic beverage in the passenger area. She's been sentenced to 10 years, two of those to be served on house arrest. She has to wear an ankle monitor and she cannot drive, drink or use drugs, and she has to perform 24 hours of community service and participate in two mothers against drunk driving panels. The Rouse cases are still pending. So I want to bring in Joe Richardson. He's a civil rights attorney who practices in California. Joe, thanks so much for joining me to discuss this case. It's really

disturbing. You know, you've got parents who are still facing charges here, accused of allowing this party house atmosphere to exist at their home. Now we have Hannah Hackmeier who has pleaded guilty to some charges, you know, for driving drunk and killing Sophie. Are you surprised by the result here? You know, she's been sentenced to 10 years, two of those years on home confinement, but she's already been on home confinement. And the 10 years, we're not really getting, you know, an idea of what the remaining eight years will be. So what do you make of that? The length of the length of time, it doesn't necessarily surprise me, Ingena, because what she was being prosecuted for was basically homicide by vehicle. And so that was comparable. It could be longer, you know,

could be longer time she's getting something in exchange for her pleading. So the length of time doesn't necessarily surprise me, not knowing the details surrounding what the eight years is going to be like. She gets two years on home confinement. You know, how much has she gotten as credit? Will those two years of home confinement include or not include what she's already done. The other reason that it doesn't surprise me is that this really kind of circles the wagons on the parents, right? Because the parents' charges are still there. As we've seen, you remember the case up in Michigan, I forget the name of the defendants. There's more accountability for parents that do things that, frankly, allow their kids to be in situations or allow children to be in situations that they wouldn't be otherwise, where it's

totally foreseeable that there would be damage and in this case even death. So it's not surprising that way as well that they're focusing on the parents the way that they are and that the child has already been pled out, basically. You know, it's a horrific case. And it's just, it's just awful. You know, I can't imagine, I'm a parent, obviously, and I can't imagine allowing an atmosphere to exist where my kid and my child then gets into a car with friends. and then they go out after they've been drinking and one of their friends dies. I mean, so there's some serious liability there, not only criminal liability, there may be some civil liability here too.

Yeah, I think that there's a, there's a good chance of that, you know, kind of varies state to state. You hear laws about, you know, a place that furnishes alcohol knowingly providing to someone that's drunk. That's typically kind of the exception to a general rule that someone that provides someone alcohol is not necessarily going to be liable. But you've got other things going on here. You've got this going on at the parents' house. You've got kids that are underage.

And I believe that there is some scenario under which on the civil side where these parents could potentially be liable. And so, you know, so it's a serious problem. because this is the kind of case where even the law would make an exception for a general rule. If it's foreseeable, the negligence principles, if it's foreseeable that something that you do goes below a standard duty, reasonable person duty, that reasonable person changes depending on what you're doing, let's say regular reasonable person standard. And you breach and cause damage, you know, there's a clear connection between the parents, you know, being the party place, providing the alcohol and then letting the kids leave. with an open alcohol container, there's a direct line between that and this young person passing away. And their own daughter could have been killed, too. So I would absolutely suspect that there's some civil liability there.

No doubt. And the parents, Sue Month and Nandita Rao, their case is still pending. And, you know, a civil case, it may end up unfolding. I want to go back to what Hannah pleaded guilty to. So, you know, oftentimes we see that the charges are reduced when somebody pleads guilty. And so we have, you know, she's pleaded guilty to homicide by vehicle in the first degree, serious injury by vehicle, reckless driving, and possession of an open container of alcoholic beverage in passenger area. you know, it's just been, you know, about two years since this crash happened.

It's just, I just still can't get over how horrific this is, you know. And I'm sure Hannah will carry this guilt with her for the rest of her life. But, you know, these charges do appear to be reduced in some fashion. She's still going to be, you know, convicted of serious crimes. and she will have this on her record for a little while. I mean, the case will end up being sealed eventually. So it will get wiped away eventually if she does everything right. So what do you make of that part of this plea agreement?

Well, yeah, so that's the hook for her, right? They're giving her time. They're giving her real time. Now, that being said, a lot of times, you know, state is not federal. Federal sentence you typically do 85% of your time. in prison. Now, there's a chance that if this goes like a lot of other states do, that maybe she is quote out, you know, physically, whether it's confinement or, you know, home confinement or whether it's being in a prison setting after about half the time is done. But the real hook is what you alluded to,

and Jeanette, the reason why she's doing this is because she does have the hope of having this thing sealed. She does it the right way. So it doesn't have to be a preclusion to her, you know, as an always part of her background. Now, the attention that this case has gotten may make her infamous. And I don't know that they can necessarily do anything about that. But for purposes of some of the things that she may want to do, some of the things she may be able, that she wouldn't be able to do otherwise, the actual sealing of the conviction. If she does, you know, if she does the things that she needs to do and check her boxes, is theoretically not supposed to preclude her

from doing things that someone that wasn't convicted of this crime would do. And so, therefore, it's going to be almost as if on paper like she didn't do it if she checks the boxes. The question is how much she has to go through in the meantime. But the ceiling is the biggest difference here. The time is comparable. The amount of time is comparable, et cetera. And she's already into it on some level.

But the ceiling is the thing that, that allows her really a path to go forward if she does this thing the right way. And so the ceiling, obviously, is not going to occur until the 10 years is up. It sounds like, you know, the 10 years, like anybody can screw up and be sent to jail or prison, I would assume. But it doesn't sound like if you're doing two years of home confinement, and there's no mention by the DA of, prison or jail, it almost sounds like they're going to let her be on like ankle monitor, GPS monitoring, you know, curfew, possibly, things of that nature. Maybe no alcohol use,

of course, can't operate a motor vehicle. You know, she has to do random drug and alcohol screenings. She has to do this 240 hours of community service and participate in two mothers against drunk driving victim impact panels. So that could be, you know, some type of part of her sentence, I guess probationary, so she can possibly go to college, get a job, do some work, things of that nature. Yeah, she'll have some restrictions for sure, and the restrictions will be for a long time. And she's really got to mind her piece and cue. She can't consume alcohol. She can't drive a vehicle. That would be very serious, not minimizing kind of what she did to get to this position. but being in a place where vehicle mobility is really important could end up being very expensive,

et cetera. So she's going to have to really make some decisions about her life that allow her to operate efficiently given the restrictions that exist. So she's going to have some restrictions. She's going to have some restrictions for a long time. And there is certainly a detriment to not fulfilling those restrictions the way that she needs to. But at the same time, there's a benefit for her actually doing it right. Eventually, she will see the light of day. And then, And it may be that, I mean, it sounds like in any event, the question is how much time she would actually do in a prison setting, et cetera. She's not going to do all 10 in a prison setting. Plus, it sounds like she's going to get credit for what's already happened.

I think we're two years into it, et cetera. So, and if you add that even if she's still on the probationary thing, even if she has to get past 10 years to get sealed, you know, there may be an opportunity here where she's not, quote, doing 10 years, doing a hard 10 years. where she doesn't have some freedom of mobility before the 10 years might be up, either because it's home confinement with curfews, etc., or because she's, quote, on the street, as it were. So for her and in her world, it's actually a pretty good deal. She's, again, she can't undo being infamous, but this is a way to kind of land the plane.

And I was suspect to the extent that there was testimony, et cetera, against the parents down the road. you'd have to participate in that as well. Do you see at the DA's office, since they say the case against the parents is still pending, do you see them being more harsh or laying more of this because of Hannah's age when this happened? She's a teenager. Do you see them maybe throwing the book at, if you will, the parents, because they permitted this atmosphere and the behavior at their home,

the underage drinking and things of that nature? How do you see this playing out? Like if you had a crystal ball? I think they're going to try to be more harsh. The question becomes how often they do this down in Georgia. Is it a new thing where a jury might not be able to get their head wrapped around it? I'd like to think that they can get their head wrapped around it. The charge is involuntary manslaughter, which, you know, is basically reckless conduct. You didn't mean to necessarily make it where someone ended up dying because of some conduct of yours. but that's exactly what you did. An involuntary manslaughter can look a lot of different ways.

So I guess the only thing they have to be concerned about, I see why they're bringing it. I think it's probably the righteous thing to do to bring it. The only thing that they have to worry about is whether and to what extent the defense can actually really create a line or a, almost like a line of demarcation or a barrier between their conduct, their client's conduct and the ultimate death. could they argue on some level, for instance, that involuntary manslaughter is really not meant. This is really not the suit to where to actually do this. So I think that they're going to try it. I think that they have a righteous cause, et cetera, and they must believe that there is a good path. But, you know, nothing is guaranteed.

And, I mean, who knows whether or not some parents may potentially relate to this idea. on the other hand, you know, of, you know, helping kids be responsible, allowing them to drink alcohol at your house. Parents have done that, but have parents sent a kid off that says, oh, we want to go driving after you have fed them alcohol and they leave with an open bottle and you know it. I think that's going to be where the defense has the problem here. It will be interesting to see how all of that plays out. And as you mentioned, you know, these restraints. that are being placed on Hannah, they are kind of, I mean, they are serious restrictions. And if she is somebody who's used to consuming alcohol and she hasn't now for maybe almost

two years because of, you know, the conditions of her bail or, et cetera, it's still maybe difficult to stay on this path. You know, this has been a life-altering event. Her friend died because of her actions. She killed her friend, Sophie. So, do you think that this will be difficult for her to do? I guess it's all going to be determined based on her willingness to comply. But this is eight more years of this unless they slide that and make it an additional 10 years or whatever. How do you look at that? Well, yeah, it could be difficult, right?

And she's got some bad habits. And, you know, she's got a really, interestingly, you know, you can't, quote, make people change. But not changing at the risk of more time, more confinement and effectively ruining your life may help inspire you to change. And so I don't think it's going to be an easy road for her. She's going to have to be determined. I guess it depends on how well she's done in the last couple years, because on some level this is a continuation of kind of what she's done. done. I'm sure she had some restrictions in terms of her home confinement and related to that.

There's probably a restriction related to consuming alcohol even before of the conviction as part of her being allowed to do home arrest. You know, once you do home arrest, you know, you can put restrictions on people. You can say you can't travel. You can say you can't do this. You can't do that. So I don't think it's going to be an easy road for her, but it's the only row for her and it's clear that it is. So hopefully the finality for lack of a better term of knowing what she's going to have to do to get to her future, as it were, helps her to do that. But I don't necessarily suspect that it would be easy, particularly if you've lived a different way. Let me add quickly that because she was as young as she was, the alcohol limit here was much lower as, you know, was a bit lower than some would think.

Or, you know, well, maybe it wasn't. But I would say this to say, we don't necessarily know that she was a raging alcoholic. We know that the parent's place was the party place. Okay. And so the extent to which this really restricts her lifestyle and what she normally did, that's where the difficulty is going to come from. But the question is, did she just have a bad night? This is something that she did quite a bit or quite often.

But hopefully whatever road she's got to be on and however discipline and focus she has to be, that she's already on the way to doing that and has been for the last two years. Yeah, let's hope. for her sake, because, you know, I look at it too as, you know, you killed your friend. Yeah. You made really bad decisions whether you were, yeah, you killed your friend, whether you were a teenager or not. You made terrible decisions. You got behind the wheel of a car.

And so your friend has then died in vain. Yes. If you don't take this opportunity and make something out of your life. That's right. Yeah. And hopefully she does that, you know. Hopefully. And hopefully she continues to speak without a court order on the importance of not drinking and driving. And she can do something good with her life. Joe Richardson, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Thank you. Good to see, Ingenet. Now, Sophie's parents, they wrote a long letter posted on Decaturish.com last year. They wrote about how this crash was entirely preventable. They founded an organization called drivesmartproject.org to educate teens about safe driving. They wrote, our experiences differ, but the common thread is that no family should have to endure such unimaginable loss by acknowledging and respecting the uniqueness of each person's sorrow. We extend empathy and compassion even when words fail us. They continued, we would give anything for a time machine, but there are no do-overs in life.

Sophie's last Christmas wish was simple and wise to spend more time together as a family before she left for college. We treasured extra family dinners and walks in the park, never imagining how soon she would leave us for good. Now we know that these quiet moments matter more than anything else. Work can wait. Messages can wait. Life's busy work pales before the chance to sit together, talk, laugh, and truly connect. If there's one legacy Sophie leaves behind, it's this gentle reminder. Treasure every moment you have with the people you love. Turn away from the things that pull you apart. Make time for family dinners, board games, and long meandering strolls. Reach out to friends and neighbors. Truly see one another. We only have so many tomorrow's,

so let's appreciate the gift of togetherness while we still can. By doing so, we honor Sophie's memory and every loved one who has taught us how precious each shared moment truly is. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.