RALEIGH - A Wake prosecutor said Friday she has heard differing accounts from motorists who witnessed an SUV run into the median along Interstate 40 this week, where it struck and killed an inmate preparing to pick up litter with a work crew.

As a result of the various witness accounts and a reconstruction of the accident that's not yet completed, authorities have not determined what caused Frederick Beaujeu-Dufour to lose control of the 2004 GMC Yukon on Tuesday morning before it overturned and landed atop Charles G. "Peanut" Wilson, a habitual offender on the short end of a nearly nine-year prison sentence.

"It will probably be sometime next week before we can determine which account is accurate," Jennifer Gray, an assistant district attorney, said.

Moreover, amid allegations that a correction administrator ordered the crew to work along I-40 without proper safety equipment, an attorney for Wilson's family said they are waiting for the truth to come out.

"I think we are going to be hearing some interesting information in about a week or so," said D. Hardison Wood, a Cary lawyer representing Wilson's family. "It's a complex set of circumstances with a whole lot of people involved."

On Thursday, police charged Beaujeu-Dufour, 37, of Clinton with misdemeanor death by vehicle.

Beaujeu-Dufour, the son in-law of former Republican Sen. Lauch Faircloth, turned himself in Thursday morning at the Raleigh Police Department, said Jim Sughrue, a police spokesman.

If convicted of the Class I misdemeanor, Beaujeu-Dufour could face up to 45 days in jail.

But Gray said given Beaujeu-Dufour's prior record, a 2001 charge of speeding in Sampson County, jail time is unlikely.

Wilson, was struck at 8:16 a.m. Tuesday as the crew prepared to clean up the grass median on I-40 near Lake Wheeler Road. He was scheduled for release in August 2009.

Since the accident, DOC officials have started an investigation that includes information from several inmates and employees at the minimum-security prison who said a correction officer in charge of the litter crew, John Ingalls McDonald, told his supervisor, Lt. Larry Marion, that the cleaning crew did not have safety equipment including signs warning motorists of inmates working on the roadside. They said Marion ignored McDonald's concerns.

"Part of our quest is to substantiate that information and make that a part of the public record," Wood said Friday.