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Grand jury probes crash that killed 3 recruits
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This fatal accident closed the eastbound lanes of Interstate 80 for several hours Monday. Three people in a sport-utility vehicle were killed afternoon when their vehicle was hit from behind by a tractor-trailer as traffic was slowing down for roadwork. The crash pinned the SUV between the truck and another tractor-trailer in front of it in Hubbard Township.
Marine Recruits Tragedy
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By ED RUNYAN
WARREN
A Trumbull County assistant prosecutor has presented information to a grand jury regarding a fatal accident on state Route 5 that killed three Marine Corps recruits.
Mike Burnett is handling that case and believes a decision regarding possible charges is likely to occur “relatively soon.”
Burnett also is working on the cases of two other fatal car accidents that occurred in Trumbull County in recent months.
Grand jury proceedings are not open to the public, and Burnett said he could not discuss case facts.
Lt. Michael Orosz, commander of the Southington Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, which investigated each of the three accidents, said the patrol has concluded its investigations into two of the accidents — the one involving the recruits and a pedestrian fatality on Center of the World South in Leavittsburg.
Three Marine recruits — Zachary A. Nolen, 19, of Mineral Ridge and Newton Falls, Joshua A. Sherbourne, 21, of Southington, and Michael T. Theodore Jr., 19, of Howland — were killed when the Pontiac G6 in which they were riding was struck from the rear by a tractor-trailer driven by Donald P. Williams Jr., 44, of Austintown on March 31.
The crash occurred while their vehicle was stopped at the traffic light at Burnett Road. The three men and a fourth recruit were on their way to Cleveland with a recruiter to complete their enlistment in the Marines.
Williams later told investigators he thinks he might have “blacked out” just before the collision.
The patrol also completed its investigation of the Center of the World South Road accident June 25 that killed 19-year-old Luke Macaluso.
An accident report says Macaluso, of Leavittsburg and his girlfriend, Brittany Russell, of Warren, had been arguing just before the accident.
The couple was walking north on Center of the World South Road away from Macaluso’s house at first, but then Macaluso “started bringing me back to his house” in a southbound direction just before the accident, Russell said.
She told investigators she was walking in the grass beside Macaluso, and Macaluso was on the pavement, his right foot on the white line on the right side of the roadway when a vehicle hit him from behind, tossing him more than 20 feet into the grass alongside the road.
The driver of the car left the scene, but police later found a car and questioned the person they believe was driving it.
The patrol is nearly done with its investigation of the May 24 triple fatal accident on Interstate 80 in Hubbard Township, Burnett and Orosz said.
The accident killed Shirley Gilmore, 66, of Warren, who was taking her brother and sister, David Westenfelder, 56, and Wendy Frost, 59, both of Surprise, Ariz., to Pittsburgh International Airport at the time her vehicle was hit from behind by a tractor-trailer driven by Eugene R. White, 62, of Shiloh, Ohio, near Dayton.
White told investigators he tried to stop his truck in time to avoid hitting Gilmore’s sport utility vehicle but he was unable to.
White said he was not distracted by any type of electronic device, such as a phone, nor was he distracted by anything else.
When asked whether he blacked out before the accident, White said, “I don’t know.”