The carjacked minivan that slammed head-on into a sedan, killing a young Jacksonville mother of two, was traveling 95 mph five seconds before the crash, a Circuit Court jury heard Tuesday.

Two witnesses installing a gas line Jan. 12 near the crash scene at Deerwood Park Boulevard and Centurion Parkway said the collision "sounded like an explosion."

Santeris T. McKinney,  25, is on trial charged with four felony crimes in the death of Amanda C. Rengifo,  24. She had just gotten off work as a customer support dispatch operator at the Southside ADT Security Services customer monitoring center and was on her way to a day-care center to get her children, aged 2 and 5.

McKinney, who got out of prison six weeks before the fatal wreck and has a criminal history of stealing cars and fleeing police, is charged with vehicular homicide, third-degree murder, aggravated fleeing and eluding and carjacking.

Assistant Public Defenders Fred Gazaleh and Kate Bedell chose not to give an opening statement to the jury and presented no defense evidence.

The jury will hear closing arguments from them and Assistant State Attorneys Mark Borello  and Janeen Mira  when the trial resumes at 12:30 today  before Circuit Judge Michael R. Weatherby.

The ordeal began when a school teacher, Sylvia Feijoo,  took her Chevy Outlander van to a gas station about 4 p.m. in the 8800 block of Beach Boulevard.

She was about to pump some gas into her van when McKinney suddenly appeared and yelled obscenities at her.

Feijoo, who wept during her testimony, told the jury she was terrified by McKinney. She said she remembers he had something black in his hand which could have been a gun.

McKinney jumped into her van, grabbed the keys off the seat and sped out of the gas station with the tires screeching.

The gas station clerk called 911 and police put out an alert for the carjacked van. Later, Feijoo was able to pick out her carjacker's photo from a spread of seven shown her by a detective.

Jacksonville police officer William Fitzgerald testified he heard the alert and saw the van being driven south on Southside Boulevard as he was driving north. He turned around and followed the van cautiously, he said, checking the license plate to confirm it was the carjacked van.

Fitzgerald said he did not turn on his emergency lights and siren because he was waiting for backup officers to join him and he did not want the suspect to know he was being followed.

After other officers joined the caravan, McKinney suddenly decided to speed up, almost hitting another vehicle as he tore out of a shopping center parking lot on Baymeadows Road.

The officers turned on their lights and sirens and pursued McKinney east on Baymeadows and then north on Southside at speeds up to 100 mph, they said.

McKinney turned onto Deerwood Park Boulevard, first trampling a median and then driving down the curving road so fast that the pursing officers lost sight of him for a moment.

Two construction workers, Robert Goodwin and Orlando Torres, were installing a gas line when Torres told Goodwin, "Oh my God! Look at this," as the carjacked van came at them. But McKinney careened around a corner, went into the wrong lane and hit Rengifo's Nissan Altima head-on before the van overturned and caught fire. The victim's car was pushed back 91 feet by the force of the crash, according to testimony.

The pursuing police quickly arrived and handcuffed McKinney, who had only minor injuries, as he climbed from the van.

When Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Lt. Patrick Gouin went to Rengifo's car, he found her trapped under the dashboard, her left leg almost severed at the knee. She was dead.

Traffic homicide detective Brian Blaquiere  examined the black box from the carjacked van and found it had been traveling at 95 mph five seconds before the crash and slowed just to 85 mph one second before impact.

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