Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 13, 1994 TAG: 9404130042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By Ron BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It's the one on Interstate 81 that still haunts him.
"It hurts. It hurts me a lot," he said. "This guy had a chance to keep on living. This accident shouldn't have happened. It was caused by someone who was drinking and driving."
That's precisely what Botetourt County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Hagan was trying to prove Tuesday during the trial of Derek McCollum .
McCollum, of St. Albans, W.Va., faced charges of involuntary manslaughter, driving under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident in connection with the death of an 81-year-old Florida man in October.
The jury deliberated 25 minutes before finding McCollum guilty of all counts. It set a 16-year prison term, which Judge George E. Honts III immediately imposed.
Hagan argued that McCollum set in motion a chain reaction accident that caused Gilbert Machon, the victim, to plow into the rear wheels of Sylvester's tractor-trailer on Interstate 81.
"This case involves every motorist's nightmare on Interstate 81," Hagan said. "It is going to give you a queasy feeling in your stomach."
Hagan used the testimony of eye witnesses to develop his case against McCollum.
Douglas Maynard, an investigator for the state public defender's office, said he first noticed the station wagon with the erratic driver as he pulled onto Interstate 81 near Christiansburg on the evening of October 23.
"It came up behind me at a high rate of speed," Maynard said. "I was doing about 70. It was going a lot faster than that."
When the station wagon got close behind it swerved into the left lane and whipped back toward the right. For the next 40 miles or so, it swerved from shoulder to shoulder while speeding up and slowing down.
As the car neared the Troutville truck scales, Sylvester's truck had slowed as he prepared to stop for weighing. When he saw the scales were closed, he kept on going in the right lane.
Sylvester, who was driving for a private trucking firm, looked in his rear view mirror and saw a car approaching at a high speed. When the car got near him, it swerved into the left lane. Its lights glared straight across the median as if it were turning too sharply to pass safely, Sylvester testified.
When he looked in his mirror again, he could see the station wagon's left wheels in the median as he careened sharply to the right and headed for the 48-foot trailer Sylvester was pulling.
As Sylvester edged the truck and its 48,000 pounds of cargo slightly to the right, he heard the thud of the station wagon as it hit the left front side of his tractor. He hit his brakes to slow the rig, but the impact snapped his steering wheel sharply to the right.
"I was fighting the wheel," he said. "With 48,000 pounds I was surprised I didn't flip."
A second brush with the car sent the rig spinning sideways as the trailer jacknifed across the oncoming traffic lane. Moments later, Machon's van crashed into Sylvester's truck.
Meanwhile, Maynard, who had been tailing the station wagon, saw it start spinning wildly in the road before coming to rest in the median.
When it took off again northward, Maynard drove around the wrecked tractor-trailer so he could keep the station wagon in sight.
As the station wagon pulled off to the right side of the road, Maynard pulled his car in front of it. He jumped out and asked the driver if he was alright.
He smelled alcohol McCollum, who grabbed for Maynard as he pulled himself out of the car. When McCollum started fumbling for something under his seat, Maynard decided to drive off and call for help.
Botetourt Deputy R.R. Markham was patroling near Buchanan when he got the call about a light-colored station wagon that had been involved in an accident. As he drove behind McCollum for about three miles, he noticed that the station wagon was swerving in the road.
When he pulled McCollum over, he testified, he noticed he was unsteady on his feet. He also smelled alcohol and found five empty beer cans underneath the seat.
When he asked McCollum if he knew where he was, McCullom told Markham he thought he was on Interstate 77 going towards toward South Carolina. He also told the deputy that he had been drinking at a halloween party in West Virginia earlier that day.
"I must be drunk," Markham quoted McCollum as saying.
McCollum's blood-alcohol content was nearly 1 1/2-times the legal limit for intoxication.
At first, he said, McCollum gave him the wrong name and birthdate. Markham got the correct information after police found a summons issued five days earlier for drunking driving in Bland County.
McCollum has three previous driving under the influence convictions.
Back up Interstate 81, Machon lay dying in his crushed van.
"He looked at me and tried to say something," Sylvester said. "It looked like he was trying to say `Why?"'
Keywords:
FATALITY
Memo: Shorter version ran in Metro edition