Heather Capell

MAYVILLE — A Georgia woman involved in a wrong-way fatal crash on Interstate 86 earlier this month has been extradited back to New York.

Chautauqua County Jail records indicate that 32-year-old Heather Capell was booked last Thursday on charges of second-degree vehicular manslaughter and driving while ability impaired by a combination of drugs. As of Tuesday morning, she remained jailed on $50,000 bail.

Capell was scheduled to appear before North Harmony Town Justice Howard Peacock this week for a preliminary hearing, a town court clerk said.

The Georgia resident was operating an eastbound vehicle in the westbound lane of the interstate July 1 when she struck another vehicle head-on. A Cattaraugus County man, identified as Bradley S. Wakefield, was pronounced dead at the scene, while Capell was transported to UPMC Chautauqua in Jamestown and later moved to an Erie, Pa., hospital for treatment of serious injuries.

According to Chautauqua County Sheriff James Quattrone, investigators believe Capell got onto the interstate at the Sherman exchange and began driving in the wrong direction. The Sheriff’s Office was notified of the wrong-way driver at 5:07 a.m., just moments before the head-on crash that closed a portion of I-86 for several hours.

Capell was taken into custody in Pennsylvania following her treatment at the hospital. She was briefly held at Erie County Prison before being returned to New York.