NU woman sentenced in fatal accident

September

accident resulted in three deaths

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

GAYLORD -- A New Ulm woman expressed a great deal of remorse and regret at her sentencing for the deaths of three people in a highway accident she caused in September of last year.

Devan Marie Maday, 19, of New Ulm, pleaded guilty to three counts of felony criminal vehicular operation resulting in great bodily harm in late March. Three other charges of criminal vehicular operation resulting in death, and a fourth charge of felony criminal vehicular operation resulting in great bodily harm were dismissed.

Maday sobbed deeply as she heard statements read by family members of the three people killed in the four-car accident.

"There are no words that can express the emotions my father, mother and brother, who happened to be with them that night, went through when two police officers came to their door Saturday night ... and told then their daughters had been killed in a car accident eight hours earlier, and so far away. It was beyond belief," said Ann Verstegen, who was speaking on behalf of the family of one of the victims.

Survivors and family members of the accident also wept and consoled each other quietly as the sentencing proceeded. One woman held a picture of accident victims as she listened to the statements of the others, Maday, the attorneys and the judge.

Maday echoed her own pain in a statement she read after the victims' families finished speaking.

"I can't imagine what I'd feel if that was my family," she said, sobbing. ... "And it could've been my family."

Maday apologized directly to the families of the victims, saying she is "very, very sorry" that the accident happened and that she didn't mean for it to happen. She said the case was frustrating for her because she is accused of a crime of which she has no memory. Maday also asked the families of the victims not to judge her solely on what the accident did to their loved ones, but on who she is as an individual person.

Sibley County District Court Judge John J. Weyrich told the court and those in the audience he thought "it is an awful experience for you to go through all of this."

"There is no way for the court to put the pieces back together again," Weyrich said. "What's happened here makes no sense at all."

Weyrich also said that while Maday is a "straight 'A' student", the accident was her third offense and that Maday's two prior convictions bothered him. Maday was convicted on two charges of failure to yield to an oncoming vehicle on March 5, 1998, and again on May 17, 2000. A New Ulm Police Department report from the May 17 incident indicated that an accident happened because Maday did not obey a yield sign.

Maday will serve 30 days in jail followed by 150 days of house arrest, perform 800 hours of community service, attend a victim-offender mediation course and pay a restitution fine yet determined by the court. Weyrich also ordered Maday to place three white crosses at the accident site on the one-year anniversary of the incident at the request of the victims' families.

"This is a tough case," said Sibley County Attorney David Schauer said after the sentencing. "It's been a tough case from the beginning. I guess I give a lot of credit to the victims' families for deciding not to send her to prison. But this is a tough case. There are no 'ifs', 'ands' or 'buts' about it."

Maday's attorney, Robert A. Docherty, said the case frustrated him because he doesn't know what happened on the date of the accident. Docherty stressed that while the case involved a tragic accident, the incident was still an accident.

"The idea that she ran the stop sign intentionally is contrary to the person I've come to known over the past nine months since the accident happened," Docherty said.

The accident occurred Sept. 2, 2000, at 11:49 a.m. at the intersection of Minnesota Trunk Highway 22 and Sibley County Highway 8 when the Jeep Cherokee Maday was driving struck a tree-trimming truck in the rear end, causing the truck to spin and roll over two other cars, killing three people and injuring two others.

The criminal complaint filed in Sibley County Court on Feb. 13, states Maday ran the stop sign at the intersection as she was heading east on County Highway 8. The driver of the truck, Jerry Lee Karstens, 45, told State Trooper James Martens he saw Maday approach the intersection at 65-70 miles per hour before the accident occurred. Karstens also told Martens that Maday "made no attempts to slow or stop."

The complaint also said a State Patrol investigation of the accident scene revealed no evidence that Maday stopped at the sign. There were no skid marks in the intersection revealing any attempt to avoid the accident, the report said.

In a statement made exactly five hours later at a hospital, Maday said she remembered seeing the stop sign and turning her cruise control off. She claimed she applied her brakes. She said she knew the stop sign was there, but did not remember the accident.

A witness who attended to Maday at the scene said she kept asking if the accident was her fault and kept indicating that her father was going to be upset with her for wrecking the vehicle. The witness also said Maday said "something like 'I just woke up and I was here' when he asked her if she was OK, adding that he didn't know if she meant she fell asleep or if it was just the shock of the collision.

Matthew Edward Hanten, Gloria Mae Hartlep and Sandra J. Koepke were killed when Karstens' 1976 Ford F600 tree-trimming truck rolled over their cars. Michael John Hartlep was seriously injured. Shirley Hunter sustained slight injuries.

Maday will serve her 30-day jail sentence in Brown County instead of Sibley County because Sibley County has no female corrections officer. Maday begins her term Monday.