Distracted Driving Prevention Fatality File

FREEHOLD, N.J. — One woman was out for a walk and a taste of fresh air during a break from her job as a scientist at a New Jersey fragrance manufacturer. She and her husband had been trying to get pregnant, and brief bouts of exercise, away from the laboratory’s smells and fumes, were part of that plan.

A second woman was behind the wheel of a black Mercedes-Benz, headed to work as chief executive of a non-profit in a city that had once lauded her as civic leader of the year for her extensive work with troubled youth.

Their lives collided with devastating speed in the coastal town of Keansburg just before 8:20 on a Wednesday morning, leaving the woman out for a walk fatally injured and the driver facing a charge of vehicular homicide, accused of texting while driving.

On Friday, a jury found the driver, Alexandra Mansonet, guilty of vehicular homicide in a case that was believed to be the first time a New Jersey jury was asked to apply a 2012 law that places texting while driving on par with drunken driving.