Trial to start in crash that killed Buffalo Grove High student

The last 24 months have brought grief and gratitude, anger and acceptance to the loved ones of Corey Diamond, Elliott Cellini and Brandon Forshall, teenage victims of the horrific car crash that claimed the life of 16-year-old Diamond and left Cellini in a coma.

Today's opening arguments mark the start of the first-degree murder trial of Ralph Lewis, the man accused of killing the young musician and Eagle Scout on July 23, 2006. Police said Lewis attempted to flee in a stolen moving van in a police chase that began in Gurnee and ended when the truck blew a red light at the corner of Dundee and Schoenbeck roads in Wheeling and barreled into a car driven by Cellini.

For three agonizing weeks after the accident, Cellini's family kept vigil at his bedside while friends and fellow students organized fundraisers to help offset the rising medical bills and well-wishers from around the world posted words of encouragement on the Web site Cellini's family set up.

Upon waking up, Cellini - like the other victims a Buffalo Grove High School student - had to learn again how to speak and swallow. Months of grueling, painful physical therapy followed, culminating in a triumphant return to high school where Cellini's classmates voted him 2007's homecoming king.

No longer able to manipulate his right hand as he once did, he taught himself to play trumpet with his left, hoping to perform again with the Expressions show choir to which he and Diamond belonged. Their good-natured battles over first chair in the concert band are the stuff of memories now.

Last year, on what would have been Diamond's 17th birthday, his family dedicated a bench in his honor at the Lake County Forest Preserve's Buffalo Creek, in a spot a forest preserve commissioner described as "a little piece of heaven."

Friends and family members founded the Corey Diamond Memorial Fund to provide instruments for middle and high school students unable to afford them, scholarships for graduating band students, and to fund Boy Scout Troop 140 community service projects and environmental programs at Buffalo Creek. The group hosts its first fundraiser Aug. 8 at Arlington Lanes. 3435 N. Kennicott Ave., Arlington Heights.