A man allegedly involved in a hit-and-run crash last week that injured a motorcyclist and killed a Delaware City firefighter has been charged with murder.

State police detectives Tuesday re-arrested Joseph M. Taye Jr., 28, of the 600 block of Belgian Drive, Bear, charging him with first-degree murder in the death of 30-year-old Michelle Smith and first-degree assault for injuries to motorcyclist Edward Reiss, 30, of New Castle, who Smith was helping at the scene of a Dec. 20 accident.

Those charges, announced late Tuesday, were upgraded from the less serious charges of manslaughter and second-degree assault Taye initially faced when he was arrested and jailed last week.

Taye, who also faces charges of driving with a revoked license, leaving the scene of a crash and failing to report a crash, initially posted his $37,000 bail and was released the day after his arrest. He now is being held without bail on the new charges in Young Correctional Institution.

Cpl. Gary Fournier, a state police spokesman, said the state attorney general reviewed the original manslaughter charges and upgraded them to murder, because Taye recklessly caused Smith's death while she was "performing her official duty." Delaware law permits the first-degree murder charge in cases where a law-enforcement officer, corrections employee or firefighter is killed in the line of duty.

A spokesman for the attorney general's office would not explain why Taye was not charged originally with first-degree murder, based on that law, saying the office does not comment on pending cases.

Reiss, who suffered severe internal injuries, remains hospitalized in Christiana Hospital in serious but stable condition, Fournier said.

According to police, Taye was at the wheel of his girlfriend's 2004 silver BMW on Dec. 20, driving south at a high speed on U.S. 13, when he sideswiped a marked county police car stationed at the scene of a motorcycle crash Reiss was involved in.

He allegedly lost control of the car and plowed into Reiss and Smith, who was on the ground attending to Reiss' injuries.

Taye then reportedly stopped the BMW on the right shoulder of the highway beyond the crash site, where a light-colored Honda Accord pulled alongside the BMW. A passenger in the Honda allegedly pulled Taye, who is paraplegic, out of the BMW and put him in the Honda, and sped away, police said.

Detectives still are searching for the Honda and the occupants.

Smith, the mother of a 12-year-old daughter and a volunteer firefighter for the Delaware City and the Volunteer Hose Company of Middletown fire companies, was taken to Christiana Hospital, where she died two days later.

A viewing for Smith is scheduled for Sunday from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Delaware City Fire Company Memorial Hall, 815 Fifth St., Delaware City.

Funeral services will be 10 a.m. Monday in the fire hall immediately followed by a firefighter honor ceremony and procession to Smyrna's Odd Fellows Cemetery.

Taye is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Jan. 9 in New Castle County Municipal Court.

According to police records in Elkton, Md., Taye is suspected of driving the same silver BMW in a Nov. 30, 2007, hit-and-run crash that injured two women, one seriously.

In the wreckage of that accident, police recovered a 4-foot-long, thin wooden stick, which Taye apparently used to operate the gas and brake pedals because he is paralyzed from the waist down.

Police said the vehicle was not equipped for a handicapped driver.

Taye, meanwhile, was not allowed to be driving because his driver's license is revoked in Delaware.

Contact Terri Sanginiti at 324-2771 or tsanginiti@delawareonline.com.

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