One Chicago teen is dead and another is charged after an alcohol-related crash in southern Wisconsin Tuesday, authorities said.

Dayne Cutler, 18, was wearing a seat belt in the back seat of a 2007 Volvo when it rolled over in a cornfield near Janesville. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Authorities said the driver, Daniel Fleming, 17, of Chicago had been intoxicated when he lost control of the car.


He was charged with homicide by operating a vehicle while intoxicated, a felony, according to Rock County Sheriff's Department Cmdr. Troy Knudson. Fleming, whose blood-alcohol level was 0.15 percent, nearly twice the legal limit for those age 21 and over, was also charged with causing injury while operating a vehicle while intoxicated, police said.

Because the accident involved underage drinking, the sheriff's department said, it's standard policy for police to try and determine who provided the minors with alcohol.

Fleming was hospitalized with lacerations and bruises, police said today. Another passenger, a 16-year-old girl from Janesville who was sitting in the front seat, was not wearing a seat belt and was ejected from the vehicle. She suffered jaw, shoulder and back injuries and was taken to Mercy Hospital in Janesville.

Knudson said their injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.

Cutler would have been a senior at Truman College's alternative high school program in the Uptown neighborhood this fall, his mother said in a telephone interview this afternoon.

Letitia Mika, 43, said her son loved playing lacrosse and helping out at church, and he wanted to join the Marine Corps.

"I wouldn't say Dayne was very religious. He loved Jesus and the Lord. But he was struggling," she said. "He was out with a crowd of kids that were partying and drinking, and that's why Dayne's not here [anymore]."

Fleming, who was wearing a seat belt, was driving the car at about 5:40 a.m. Tuesday on West County Highway A, west of Janesville, when he spun out of control and rolled the car over, police said. The vehicle was found on its roof about 35 feet from the road in a cornfield.

Mika said she was getting ready for work at about 10 a.m. Tuesday when she heard the news about her son.

A Chicago police officer came to her Northwest Side home and told her to call Wisconsin authorities. When she did, she learned about the accident. "I started screaming," she said.

She said Cutler and Fleming went to Janesville, Fleming's former hometown, to visit some of Fleming's friends.

Fleming "was a new friend [of Dayne's]," Mika said. "I'd only met him a couple of times. He seemed like a nice kid."

In addition to his mother and father, who are divorced, Cutler is survived by an older brother, a stepmother and a stepfather. Funeral services are pending.

Efforts to reach Fleming's family were unsuccessful.