Judge orders apology ad in vehicular homicide
A judge today ordered the driver in a one-car crash that killed a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs track star to take out a full-page ad in the campus newspaper offering a public apology and a warning against drunken driving.
Fourth Judicial District Judge J. Patrick Kelly also sentenced Dylan Timothy Salazar, 19, to four years in the state’s Youth Offender prison in Pueblo plus a suspended 12-year prison sentence. Salazar pleaded guilty Dec. 17 to vehicular homicide in the death of his roommate, David Mueller.
Mueller, 19, was a passenger in a July 19 crash on Garden of the Gods Road in which the vehicle Salazar was driving ended up on its roof in a field alongside the road. Salazar survived the crash in which speed and alcohol were factors, police said. After Mueller’s death, about 300 people attended a candlelight vigil at Coronado High School, his alma mater.
The sentence was part of a plea agreement worked out with the consent of Mueller’s relatives, several of whom were in the courtroom for the sentencing. They wore buttons and blue wristbands with the words “Live Strong” and medallions with a picture of Mueller running. In his brief time at UCCS, he broke several track records while pursuing a business degree.
“My sons and I have forgiven Dylan at this time the best we can,” Mueller’s mother, Sandy Eversole, told the judge. “But I think Dylan needs to reflect on his life’s journey to date and think about his past habits and what this time of his incarceration is for … to take responsibility.”
The idea of placing an ad with a picture of Mueller and an apology from Salazar grew out of a mediation process in which both sides sought restorative justice, said David Webster, a former prosecutor and lawyer for Salazar.
Webster said his client and the victim’s family wanted to do something to help stem a number of recent car crashes involving young people, speed and alcohol. The agreement called for placing an ad in a local newspaper, but Kelly expanded it to include the UCCS paper, The Scribe.
“We need to get these kids to think,” Webster said. “They’re not thinking right now and the results are tragic.”
Eversole described her son as a modest guy who kept his track ribbons and awards in a box under his bed. He wanted to become a financial advisor and used to take money he received as gifts for his birthday and Christmas and invest it in the stock market. He was someone the entire family looked up to, she said.
“He was an old soul,” she said.
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