|
Home Search |
Published on Friday, December 24, 2004
in the St. Petersburg Times
From his speeding car, John O'Donnell called 911.
He had been the victim of a hit and run. Another car had bumped into him at a stoplight, and the driver had taken off.
O'Donnell pursued him. He told the operator he was going more than 100 mph and gave her the license number of the fleeing car. The operator told O'Donnell to pull over, that deputies were on the way.
But O'Donnell didn't.
Neither did the other driver, Donald McCracken. He lost control on a curve, and his Ford Explorer hurtled into the opposite lane of State Road 52 near San Antonio in Pasco County. The SUV struck a Toyota 4Runner coming from the other direction. Both drivers were killed.
O'Donnell, of Oldsmar, had been the victim earlier that day, Oct. 2, as he was hit from behind.
Now he is the accused.
The Florida Highway Patrol arrested him this week on two counts of vehicular homicide.
"Our whole deal is that his actions and negligence in chasing this motorist led to the unnecessary death of two people," said FHP spokesman Larry Coggins. "He was a victim of a hit and run. That's turned into him going to jail."
* * *
It started with a fender bender, and not much of one at that.
O'Donnell, 38, was stopped at State Road 54 and Bruce B Downs Boulevard in southern Pasco County. McCracken, 43, of Wesley Chapel, bumped into the the rear of O'Donnell's Hyundai.
It should have ended there, with a call to the Highway Patrol and an exchange of insurance cards.
The chase turned the mundane into the tragic.
What, Trooper Coggins was asked, should O'Donnell have done when McCracken left the scene?
"If you can, get the other party's tag number and maybe a look at what the other driver looks like. But pull over, report the crash," Coggins said.
The FHP has lots of methods to catch people who flee accident scenes, Coggins said. Stay where you are, stay safe and let law enforcement do their job.
"The bottom line is, there's absolutely no winners here," he said. "Two families have lost loved ones and now this man is facing two counts of vehicular manslaughter. All because of a fender bender."
* * *
The episode's most innocent victim was William Streilein, 48, of Masaryktown. An expert on wetlands, he was a senior ecologist for a biological research agency in Tampa.
He was headed home that day to pick up his fiancee. They were going to meet his parents at the hospital, where his 77-year-old mother was suffering from pneumonia.
Streilein's father says he doesn't know what to make of the man now charged in his son's death. The man he says he truly blames is dead.
"I basically feel that McCracken is the one who killed my son," Walter Streilein said. "But on the other hand, I'm saying to myself, "Would McCracken have been going that fast if the other guy hadn't been chasing him?' "
The woman Streilein planned to marry this month says she is more sure.
"I'm sorry; I think that the gentleman that was arrested, he deserves everything that he's going to get," said Margaret Hagin. "He's destroyed our lives. Because of road rage."
O'Donnell was released from the Pasco County jail Thursday night on $5,000 bail.
Asked for comment before his release, he sent word to a reporter that he wanted to speak with his attorney first.
Nobody seems to know why McCracken decided to flee, including his wife, Linda McCracken.
Her husband, who did maintenance work for a company in Hillsborough, was active in their church. Normally this time of year, she said, he would be gathering food and toys for needy families. He and his wife's favorite pastime was going to yard sales on Saturday mornings.
The day of the crash, he was headed home to pick up his wife's 16-year-old son and take him to a friend's birthday party.
Linda McCracken says her husband would be horrified if he were alive to see what became of the chase.
"The Streilein family, I'm just crushed, I don't know what to say to them," she said. "The guy was just driving and my husband ... if he had lived, he couldn't have taken the fact that somebody else had died. He just couldn't have."
But she blames O'Donnell's road rage for her husband's death.
"Right now I am not at a point where I can extend mercy to John O'Donnell," she said. "But I pray that God extends him mercy."