Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 14, 1993 TAG: 9308140173
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Medium
Seconds later, Weeks' husband was dead.
Then, according to witnesses, the pickup's driver and his friends - who were on their way to the Guns N' Roses concert in Roanoke - scrambled to hide beer, marijuana, marijuana paraphernalia and a handgun that had been inside the truck before police arrived.
The driver, Douglas Callahan, 23, of Hurt, was initially charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, but that charge was dropped. He now faces an involuntary manslaughter charge.
Friday, after listening to testimony from a state trooper, Sandra Weeks and other witnesses at a preliminary hearing for Callahan, a Bedford County judge certified the charge to the grand jury, which next meets in September. The maximum punishment for involuntary manslaughter is 10 years in prison.
When questioned a short time after the accident by a state trooper, Callahan said a car pulled out in front of him, forcing him to swerve into the parking lot of Jim's Country Store at Virginia 24 and Virginia 608.
He denied being drunk or high on drugs.
But Callahan later said he was looking for something under his seat, while a passenger in the truck, Chuck Newman, was steering for him. Also in the truck was Sarah Hille.
Newman lost control of the truck, Callahan said, and as he tried to regain control, they skidded into the parking lot and slammed into the Weeks' car.
Callahan made this second statement while talking to Hille privately inside Trooper David Martin's police car. Martin had finished questioning them and had left the car, but he left a tape recorder running.
Martin also observed that Callahan "appeared dazed" and "disassociated with what was going on." He noted that Callahan's face was flushed and his eyes were bloodshot. A Breathalyzer test taken two hours after the wreck showed Callahan had a 0.08 blood-alcohol level.
The legal limit is 0.10.
Questioned further, Callahan admitted he had smoked marijuana earlier that day but denied the marijuana taken from his truck was his.
Sandra Weeks, 33, was seriously injured in the April wreck that killed her husband, David McKinley Weeks, 39. She walked into the courtroom with the aid of a metal walker Friday.
Her 4-year-old daughter, Madeline, was not seriously hurt.
In other testimony, two witnesses said they saw Callahan and several others taking beer out of the truck and taking it to other cars that were apparently traveling with Callahan.
Carolyn Kline, who lives in an apartment above the store, testified that she saw a man in a tie-dyed shirt take something from the truck and hide it under an oil tank. Martin testified that he later recovered marijuana, several marijuana pipes and other paraphernalia from the spot.
Kline also said she watched the man in the tie-dyed shirt take a handgun from the truck, tuck it in his belt, run off to a car and drive away.
Another witness, the Rev. Walter J.L. Mason, testified that about a mile east of the store on Virginia 24, Callahan's truck had passed him "like I was parked."
"It really scared me," he said.
Martin said that skid marks left by the truck measured 54 feet from the center of the road to the point where it struck the Weeks' car.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB