Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 12, 1995 TAG: 9505120043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Stanley W. Brooks, who was killed along with two others in the May 1993 head-on collision on the Roy Webber Highway, was named in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Roanoke Circuit Court.
The suit was filed by Raymond Dyke, 23, who is paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the accident.
Also named in the suit are three insurance companies that carried policies on the cars involved in the crash. "We have no indication that Mr. Brooks' estate had any assets whatsoever," said Jeffrey Krasnow, a Roanoke lawyer who filed the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims that Brooks was going nearly 100 mph southbound near the Elm Avenue exit the night of May 16, 1993, when his Mustang veered across the median, went airborne and crashed head-on into a car traveling in the opposite direction. Blood tests showed Brooks was drunk at the time.
The collision killed Geoffrey Pelton, the driver of the car Brooks hit, and seriously injured Dyke, who was riding in the front passenger seat. The impact also killed Brooks, 22, and Gregory Kinzie, Brooks' passenger and the owner of the Mustang. A woman who was driving a third car also was injured.
Brooks, whose driver's license had been suspended at least six times, had been declared a habitual offender - meaning he was barred from the road for 10 years -shortly before the accident.
Several weeks later, another motorist with a restricted license caused an accident that killed a 9-year-old Roanoke County boy.
Community outrage over the two accidents prompted the Courts of Justice Committee of the House of Delegates to hold a public hearing in Roanoke, and a panel of legislators created at the hearing later drafted a package of anti-drunken driving laws that was passed last year.
by CNB