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Ashley Milburn, 17 -- Car Accident

Published Thursday, April 20, 2006 by Admin | E-mail this post

[10/28/05]

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The prosecution said it didn't matter if the girlfriend of a 15-year-old grabbed the steering wheel of the car he was driving just before the crash that killed her.

Skid marks on the road showed Timothy Shanks, who was driving without a license, passed another car at such an angle that it would have gone off the road anyway, a police detective and accident reconstructionist testified.

Shanks, whose only previous driving experience was on a lawn mower and in his mother's car in the driveway, laid his head on the defense table and sobbed Thursday after Franklin County Magistrate Douglas Shoemaker convicted him of a juvenile count of aggravated vehicular homicide. He faces six months to six years in a juvenile detention center when sentenced next month.

Based on police estimates, Shanks was traveling about 60 mph on Oct. 28 when the car veered off the side of the road and struck a tree and the side of a concrete bridge. Ashley Milburn, 17, was thrown from the car and died a few hours later at a hospital.

Shanks testified that he passed the other car safely and didn't lose control until Milburn jerked the wheel from the passenger seat.

"If she grabbed the wheel, it doesn't make any difference," Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Dennis Hogan said. "The car was out of control. At that time, his fate was sealed."

Milburn's friend was driving the car that Shanks passed. The two girls had been racing earlier in the evening, according to testimony, but Shanks said in court that he was not racing.

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