BY SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LEBANON -- A former Warren County Career Center student said he wanted to spare this city more painful memories of a fatal car accident by pleading no contest Monday to two counts of vehicular homicide.
Christopher Heitfield, 19, was the driver of the 1983 Chevy pickup truck that slid across a pool of water on Ohio 48 and slammed head-on into a Jeep Cherokee in January.
Mr. Heitfield's two friends and passengers, Jennifer Zimmer and Victoria McCoy, both 17, were killed.
Another passenger, Lindsay Pennington, now 17, survived with a broken pelvic bone and head injuries. The driver of the 1998 Jeep Cherokee, Fred Mershad, a Dayton resident and CEO of Elder-Beerman department stores, suffered a shattered ankle.
"We just felt we can't bring back the girls, but we felt the girls would have wanted to get it over with instead of anybody else suffering," Mr. Heitfield's mother, Delores, said after Monday's plea.
Warren County Court Judge Dallas Powers accepted the no-contest plea and entered a finding of guilty. Mr. Heitfield was to begin a three-day jury trial on the charges Monday.
In exchange for the no-contest plea, prosecutors will ask for community service instead of jail time when Mr. Heitfield is sentenced Nov. 12. He still faces a fine up to $2,000. But he had faced up to one year in jail if he had gone to trial on the first-degree misdemeanor charges and had been convicted.
Mr. Heitfield would not comment as he left the courtroom with his mother, brother and a friend. But Ms. Heitfield said her son initially had wanted a trial to prove the crash was an accident. Assistant Prosecutor Carolyn Duvelius said the evidence points to negligence.
A crash reconstructionist said Mr. Heitfield was driving 66 mph in the rain in a 55 mph speed zone before he wrecked, she said. He also did not have a working speedometer, so he had no way of knowing how fast he was driving, Ms. Duvelius said.
The crash took place just after the close-knit group of four friends left the school for the day. Instead of waiting in a long line of traffic to turn south on Ohio 48, Mr. Heitfield turned north and drove up to Turner Drive, where he turned around.
Driving back toward the school, authorities say Mr. Heitfield picked up speed when he hydroplaned, crossed into oncoming traffic and smashed into the Jeep.
The four teen-agers, all from Lebanon, were ejected from the truck. The collision was so violent, the truck's cab separated from the frame. Its transmission was left in the middle of the road. Mr. Heitfield's lawyer, Kevin Thornton, said his client remains close to Jennifer Zimmer's family.
"No one wanted to see him go to jail," he said.
But Calvin McCoy, Vickie's father, called it a "toss-up." His feelings are conflicted about Mr. Heitfield. While upset with him for speeding, Mr. McCoy realizes the young man was his daughter's good friend and is suffering her loss.
Still, he said avoiding the trial offered little relief from his grief.
"I have to go the rest of my life without a daughter," Mr. McCoy said. "She was my only child."
