Five teenage boys, aged between 13 and 18, will face charges of manslaughter in an Adelaide court on Tuesday, after a high-speed hit-and-run killed Adelaide mother-of-two Lucy Paveley.
All of the boys have been refused bail, the Adelaide Advertiser reports.
Paveley was on her way to an early morning shift on Sunday at an AnglicareSA nursing home, where she worked as a carer, when her car was hit by a Mitsubishi Pajero 4WD.
The Pajero, which police say was stolen from an Adelaide property overnight, was allegedly racing through a red light at high speed. It had been clocked by police earlier that morning travelling up to 110km/h.
The force of the collision rammed the victim's car more than 50 metres down the road and wiped the front of the vehicle clean off. Speaking at the crash site, police said Paveley had "no chance" of survival.
A 14-year-old boy from the Adelaide suburb of Paralowie was the first to be charged over the deadly crash in the early hours of Monday morning. Since then, one boy aged 13, two aged 15 and a man aged 18 have been arrested.
All five had been charged with manslaughter -- a more serious charge than causing death by dangerous driving, which is much more commonly used for fatal car crashes in South Australia.
More serious charges are expected to follow, police said in a statement.
The suspects did not stop to check on the Adelaide mum, police allege, instead fleeing the crash site in a second stolen car -- an action investigating officers slammed as "totally unbelievable" and "an absolute disgrace".
Now, South Australia's Attorney General John Rau says new laws currently before the state parliament could be in force in time to enable the teenagers to be tried as adults.
If found guilty in an adult court, the youths face maximum sentences of life imprisonment.
"The notion that somebody can steal a vehicle, and then drive something which weighs several tonnes around the place at very high speed and crash into somebody else going about their ordinary business is just so grotesquely unacceptable," the state Attorney-General said, according to the Adelaide Advertiser.
"In some circumstances, the offending of these young people is so gross that they need to be dealt with as adults, and that's what we're seeking to achieve."
Police are calling for anyone who may have dashcam footage or who spotted either the white Pajero or the getaway car -- black Mazda sedan -- in Adelaide on Sunday morning to come forward.
The arrests follow a spate of deadly hit-and-run incidents in Adelaide over the past 18 months, according to The Adelaide Advertiser.
On Monday night, a five-car crash on the same stretch of road in Adelaide claimed the life of a Parafield 18-year-old and has left a second boy, aged 16, fighting for life.