Zion man gets 10 years in fatal crash
His daughter was already late in getting home, Anthony Trevithick said, when he turned on his police radio scanner after hearing the helicopter fly over his Spring Grove home.
He heard the chatter from the crash scene nearby and drove to it, only to see the mangled car of his daughter, Danielle, lying in a marsh off the side of Grass Lake Road.
“A deputy told me to go home and be with my wife and family,” Trevithick said Wednesday in Lake County circuit court. “I was hoping they would come to the house and tell us which hospital to go to to be with Danielle.”
But the hours passed on the early morning of last Aug. 12, and the only person who came to Trevithick’s door was from the coroner’s office, bearing the news no parent ever wants to hear.
An honor student at the College of Lake County who worked full-time as a beautician, Danielle Trevithick died that morning when a car driven by Michael Albers, Jr. of Zion crossed the centerline and tore into her car.
Albers, 24, suffered serious injuries of his own in the crash. Two passengers in his vehicle, one of whom lost her left arm after 10 surgeries, were also severely injured.
Albers was taken to a Rockford hospital for treatment for his broken legs, but he ran away from the hospital and was not arrested until Aug. 26 after police found him hiding in an Antioch apartment.
He was charged with aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol after a test showed he had a blood alcohol content of .192 percent and traces of marijuana in his system at the time of the crash.
An investigation showed Albers was driving 86 mph at the time of the crash and made no effort to use the brake before the impact with Trevithick’s car.
Facing up to 14 years in prison, Albers chose to represent himself and negotiated a guilty plea that limited his potential sentence to 10 years.
Assistant State’s Attorney Kristen Robinson asked Circuit Judge James Booras to impose the full 10 years, citing Albers’ lengthy record of driving offenses and two drug possession convictions that sent him to prison in 2007 and 2009.
“The defendant chooses to minimize his (criminal) history,” Robinson said. “Right here today, he can no longer minimize what he did that night.”
Assistant Public Defender Katherine Hatch, appointed to represent Albers after his guilty plea was entered, asked for a sentence of four years and suggested her client may not have been totally responsible for the crash.
“The victim had a blood alcohol content of .127 percent (also above the legal definition of intoxication),” Hatch told Booras. “This was an accident that no one wanted to happen.”
Albers, who had been accused by the Trevithick family of showing no remorse, apologized to Danielle’s relatives and friends and his own injured friends in his statement to the court.
“I now realize how fast dumb decisions can effect me and others, and I am truly sorry,” he said.
Booras called Albers’ statement of regret “too little and too late,” and told everyone in the courtroom not to make too much of the victim’s blood alcohol results.
“She also had alcohol in her system, but she wasn’t driving at 86 mph and she didn’t leave her side of the road,” Booras said. “Whether she was sober or drunk, Mr. Albers, she would have been just as dead and it is because of what you did.”