$2M bail set for driver charged with killing couple

An Ozaukee County circuit judge on Tuesday set bail at $2 million for a 24-year-old man accused of passing 24 vehicles at speeds that exceeded 100 mph while driving the wrong way on I-43 before he slammed head-on into an SUV, killing a couple from Oostburg near Port Washington early Memorial Day morning.

Ace Vue of Milwaukee, who made his initial court appearance before Judge Adam Gerol Tuesday, is charged with two counts of first-degree reckless homicide in connection with the deaths of Jay and Nicole Horne and first-degree reckless injury in connection with the critical injuries suffered by the couple’s 22-year-old daughter Alissa.

Calling his actions inexplicable, Ozaukee County District Attorney Benjamin Lindsay said Vue drove his 2025 Lexus IS sedan back and forth on I-43 in an area between the Sheboygan County line and Port Washington in the correct traffic lanes, at one point crossing through the grass median to go the other direction, until stopping on the freeway, doing a U-turn and driving south in the northbound lanes just after midnight May 26.

Footage from cameras in Vue’s vehicle, which also recorded his speed, showed him passing two dozen vehicles, forcing several drivers to take evasive action to avoid collisions, while driving the wrong way, Lindsay said.

For seven minutes Vue was driving at more than 100 mph. He was traveling at 92 mph when he hit the Hornes’ 2017 Ford Escape, according to a criminal complaint.

“Likely he may have been under the influence (of intoxicants),” Lindsay said, adding that the results of toxicology tests are not yet available.

In setting Vue’s bail at the $2 million requested by Lindsay, Gerol said the penalties he faces if convicted — a maximum 145 years in prison and on supervision — are incentives to flee. In addition, the judge said, Vue demonstrated by his inexplicable actions that he is a danger to the public.

  “There is no explanation for what occurred here,” he said.

Vue, who was in a wheelchair and wearing a neck brace during his court appearance via video from the Ozaukee County jail Tuesday, was injured in the crash and taken by ambulance to Aurora Medical Center in Grafton before being flown to Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa in critical condition.

Lindsay said Ozaukee County authorities were informed that Vue likely faced a prolonged hospital stay, but officers following up on the case discovered that he was released from the hospital last weekend without the Sheriff’s Office being notified.

Authorities arrested him at his parents’ home in South Milwaukee on Monday and booked him to the county jail.

According to the criminal complaint, at 12:37 a.m. May 26, an Ozaukee County sheriff’s deputy was dispatched to an area of I-43 near Belgium for multiple reports of a red sedan driving south in the northbound lanes while swerving and speeding. The Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Office received several similar 911 calls.

Moments later, Port Washington police officers who were watching for the car from the Highway H overpass near the north side of Port saw it collide head-on with another vehicle.

Officers arrived at the scene to find a Ford Escape that had suffered “devastating damage.” Mr. Horne, who was a front seat passenger in the vehicle, was found in the median deceased. Mrs. Horne, who was driving, was pinned in the vehicle. Emergency responders initially detected a pulse, but she quickly died, the complaint states.

Alissa Horne, who was in the back seat, was pinned in the vehicle and conscious. After being extricated from the vehicle, she was taken by ambulance to Froedtert Hospital. She suffered two broken femurs and a broken ankle and was still in the hospital earlier this week.

A witness who is a volunteer firefighter and stopped at the crash scene to help told authorities that he was driving north in the right lane of I-43 when the Hornes’ vehicle passed him in the left lane. Vue’s red sedan was driving in the middle of the freeway toward them, and while Mrs. Horne swerved she could not avoid the car, which struck the front and passenger side of her Escape, according to the complaint.

Officers investigating the crash discovered Vue’s vehicle had a front and rear-facing dash camera. A search warrant was obtained for footage from the camera, which showed Vue driving south on I-43 from Sheboygan County in the correct lanes, then exiting the freeway on the north side of Port Washington.

He crossed the I-43 overpass on Highway H and got back on the freeway, driving north in the correct lanes until he was north of Belgium, where he drove through the grass median of the freeway and headed south in the southbound lanes.

He exited the freeway at Belgium, then re-entered it and drove north in the northbound lanes until he was just south of Cedar Grove, where he did a U-turn and began driving south in the northbound lanes, the complaint states.

Dash camera footage shows several drivers of the vehicles Vue passed flashed their headlights and honked their horns at him in an effort to alert him to the fact he was driving the wrong way.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Vue’s lawyer, Jamie Pagac, asked Gerol to set his bail at between $30,000 and $50,000. She said Vue, who appeared to be crying at one point in the hearing, is a tax accountant.

As conditions of his bail, Gerol ordered Vue to maintain absolute sobriety and not drive or have contact with the victims in the case.

Vue is scheduled to appear in court on June 12 for a preliminary hearing.

First-degree reckless homicide is punishable by a maximum 40 years in prison and 20 years of extended supervision. 

First-degree reckless injury is punishable by a maximum 15 years in prison and 10 years of extended supervision.