Teen Involved in Merritt Crash Has Died

STAMFORD -- An 18-year-old New Hampshire man died less than 24 hours after losing control of his car on the Merritt Parkway and slamming into a tree Thursday morning.

Stamford Hospital spokesman Scott Orstad said that Branden Myers, of Chester, N.H., died of the wounds suffered in the accident at about 6 a.m. Friday.

Myers was pinned inside the mangled wreckage of a 2005 Chevrolet Classic for more than an hour as firefighters from the Greenwich, Turn of River and Stamford Fire & Rescue departments worked to get him out.

A Stamford Hospital surgeon was brought to the accident scene at the Greenwich-Stamford border to assist. Myers suffered multiple fractures, State Police said. He remained in the hospital's Intensive Care Unit Thursday evening.

Myers was driving north in the left lane just after the Guinea Road overpass when he lost control of the vehicle and careened across the right lane into the grass shoulder and struck a tree 30 or 40 feet off the road, state police said in a short explanation issued .

The 9:46 a.m. accident prompted the closure of the parkway's northbound side for about four hours while police investigated. Drivers on the parkway were diverted onto North Street in Greenwich; cars near the crash were forced to turn around and drive the wrong way on the parkway.

Greenwich resident Christine Edwards said she was stopped on the parkway for more than an hour before police began turning drivers around.

"It was really unbelievable," Edwards said. "I had never driven backwards on the Merritt Parkway before."

Turn of River Assistant Chief Matt Maounis said the accident was one of the worst single-car crashes he has seen in his 25 years with the department.

The Chevrolet that Myers was driving was almost completely wrapped around the tree. The damage was so bad it took 50 minutes for firefighters to get Myers out of the car, Maounis said.

Teams of firefighters used hydraulic rescue tools to cut the car's roof off, along with one door and part of the car's floorboards before Myers could be pulled out safely, Maounis said.

"The medics did a fantastic job keeping the man alive at the scene," he said. Medics had Myers on oxygen and were able to keep his airway clear while firefighters worked to extricate him from the vehicle.

HORRIBLE Merrit Accident in Greenwich

Just in time for the Holidays..

10:13 AM
The911Center The911Center.com
RT @BelltownFire: E9, E62, R66, R1, U65, C612, Greenwich E1, DC, GEMS, SEMS operating on the parkway. Probably missed some too. #CTTRAFFIC

10:30 AM
StamAdvocate Stamford Advocate
by The911Center
The Merritt Parkway is closed between exits 31-33 because of an accident. #cttraffic

10:50 AM
The911Center The911Center.com
RT @BelltownFire: Physician from Stamford Hospital enroute to the accident scene #CTTRAFFIC

10:59 AM
The911Center The911Center.com
GREENWICH CT Merrit Parkway Trauma surgeon on scene. Extrication complete. Extended operation. Highway closed. #CTTRAFFIC

11:25 AM
The911Center The911Center.com
Photo from News12 CT of the Accident RT-15 exit 33 #CTTRAFFIC http://yfrog.com/oel05esj

How many more cars are involved that they closed down more than one exit off the Merrit?

----*UPDATE:*----

News 12: State police have identified the driver in the Greenwich crash as a 19-year-old from New Hampshire. Police say Branden Myers sustained serious injuries in the crash. Click here to see extended video of the crash from Chopper 12.

HOLY SHIT, he survived! Although with serious injuries. Miraculous. I wonder if he'll hold on.. And hope no one else was in the car.

----*UPDATE 2:*----

(12/16/11) STAMFORD - Police say the teen involved in a serious accident on the Merritt Parkway has died.

Police say Branden Myers, 19, was headed home to New Hampshire when he lost control.

Emergency crews say it took nearly an hour to get him out using the jaws of life.

He died after all. So sad... You almost wish it could've been an instant death in this case.

Man Gets Life Without Parole in Gruesome Ohio Murders

(CNN) -- An Ohio man pleaded guilty Thursday and was sentenced to life without parole for killing and dismembering a woman, her son and her friend and hiding their bagged remains in the hollow of a tree.

Matthew Hoffman, 30, pleaded guilty to all 10 counts, including three counts of aggravated murder and the kidnapping of one of the victim's 13-year-old relatives, in Knox County, Ohio, in November.

According to his attorney, Hoffman said he committed the crimes after encountering Tina R. Herrmann when he entered the house during a burglary attempt.

But the sister of Stephanie Sprang, one of the other victims, said there was no excuse for him killing Herrmann and waiting for the other victims to come to the house.

"Death is too easy for him and we would rather pay tax dollars and let him suffer and live and deal with what he did every day," Sherrie Baxter told CNN affiliate WSYX.

The remains of Herrmann, 31, her son, Kody, and Stephanie Sprang, 41, were found November 18 in a rural area after they had been missing 10 days from Herrmann's home. Autopsy results indicated they had been stabbed to death and dismembered.

Hoffman, who worked as a tree trimmer, was indicted Monday and the plea and sentencing agreement were detailed during a hearing Thursday.

"The indictment alleges that Hoffman purposely caused the deaths of Tina R. Herrmann, Ms. Herrmann's son Kody Maynard, age 11, and her neighbor Stephanie L. Sprang, on November 10, 2010," prosecutors said about the indictment. "The aggravated murder charges further allege that Hoffman murdered the victims while he was committing the offense of aggravated burglary in Herrmann's residence."

The indictment did not include death penalty specifications, authorities said, "in accordance with the wishes of the victim's families."

CNN left a message for Hoffman's attorney, Bruce Malek, who told WSYX that Hoffman had remorse for what he did and felt it was important for the victims' remains to be found. Police previously had said Hoffman provided information leading to the recovery of the remains.

The 13-year-old girl was found bound and gagged in the basement of Hoffman's home in Mount Vernon, Ohio, about 20 miles from Herrmann's home in Howard, Ohio. Hoffman was charged with one count of rape for allegedly assaulting the girl, prosecutors said.

Besides the aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, kidnapping and rape charges, Hoffman faced a charge of tampering with evidence for allegedly removing some clothing and bedding from Herrmann's residence in order to hinder the investigation, authorities said.

He also pleaded guilty to three counts of abuse of a corpse. Prosecutors those charges were filed because "the victims' remains were not intact when recovered by authorities in a hollow tree" in Kokosing Lake State Wildlife Area.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, in a statement read by Knox County Prosecutor John Thatcher, the girl said: "This has changed my whole life and my family's life, too." In the statement, the teen related memories of the victims and said she's no longer frightened of Hoffman.

"This is so sickening, Matthew, to know you even had the guts to do this to a family," she said in the statement.

Herrmann failed to report to work at a Dairy Queen in Mount Vernon on November 10, Knox County Sheriff David Barber told CNN affiliate WBNS. A deputy twice went to her home and saw her pickup truck there. No one answered the door, though lights were on in the home.

Later in the week, blood was found in the home, leading authorities to suspect foul play.

Sprang's father, Steve Thompson, said he was satisfied with the sentence.

"They are many answers that I still need," he told WSYX. "I am confident and sure we will find them later on down the road."

Falling Tree Kills Backcountry Woman on Way to Dinner

[ARTICLE 1]

This article reflects my uncle (Sgt. Mike O'Connor)'s account of nearly losing his life as well.


Greenwich Time- A 61-year-old woman was killed after a tree struck her on the head as she and her husband walked in their northeast Greenwich neighborhood during the storm Saturday night.

Police did not release the woman's name pending notification of additional family members. Her husband, who was slightly injured, was treated and released from Greenwich Hospital, and could not be reached by telephone Sunday.

The woman and her husband lived on Boulder Brook Road, and were believed to be walking to a neighbor's home for dinner, police said.

Neighbor Gary Silberberg said he was outside checking on damage when he was approached by the woman's husband, asking him to help search for his wife.

"He was upset, he was agitated," Silberberg said. Darkness and extensive tree damage made the search difficult, Silberberg said.

"It was just awful there were so many trees down," he said.

Silberberg returned to his home to find a flashlight. When he returned a few minutes later the woman had been found lying on the road close to a tree.

"She was lying face down and we turned her over and I couldn't get a pulse and she had a gray pallor on her face," said Silberberg, 65, who had been a medic in the Army about 40 years ago.

A neighbor found a tarpaulin and Silberberg and other neighbors carried her to a nearby home where a doctor lived.

The doctor looked at her but there was nothing he could do, Silberberg said.

Police believed one white pine tree knocked two others down, and that one of the those trees fell on the woman's head.

"We think she died instantly," said Chief David Ridberg.

It took almost two hours for police and paramedics to arrive because of the storm damage that blocked roads leading to the scene, said Sgt. Michael O'Connor.

At one point he feared for his life on Stanwich Road.

"We were outside trying to move a tree when we heard a loud crack -- the gust of wind must have been 70 miles per hour easily -- and we jumped back into the truck," he said. "The tree just stopped above the hood, it was the (telephone) wires that stopped it. If I had moved that truck about four feet (before the tree came down) I think it would have crushed the truck."

The tree's trunk, which O'Connor estimated to be about three feet in diameter, stopped just inches above the hood of the police department pickup he was in with two other officers and two paramedics.

"It was right in the windshield, right in our faces," he said. "There were some expletives said and I said let's get out of here."

They parked the vehicle in a driveway and waited for a tree crew to cut the tree to let them through. But another tree was in their way preventing them from responding to Boulder Brook Road.

They got out and walked but in the meantime two detectives had reached the scene, said O'Connor. Instead they responded to other calls including one where a family had been trapped in a car for hours because trees had come down on either side of the car.

"It was like something out of a movie," O'Connor said about the damage wrought by the storm and the danger they were in. "I was scared. I have been a police officer for almost 26 years and I was a volunteer firefighter before that. This was the worst I have ever seen it. I do consider myself lucky."

It wasn't until about 11 p.m. that the woman and her husband were brought to the hospital, police said.

The woman's body will be taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner Monday. Police did not know if an autopsy will be performed Monday.

Tree in Kenner Park Lives On in Sandra Cantu's Name

Yards away from where 8-year-old Sandra Cantu used to attend school, a crepe myrtle now stands in her memory.

The family of the slain Tracy girl met at Kenner Park this morning to watch the city plant the 8-foot-tall sapling, which should sprout pink blossoms every spring for decades to come. Pink was Sandra’s favorite color.

“A tree is representative of life and strength and hope,” said Tracy police chaplain Dan Higgins before Sandra’s mother and grandmother scooped the first shovelfuls of dirt around the young tree.

Children peeked through the fence from Sandra’s old campus, Jacobson Elementary School, during the brief ceremony. Sandra’s mother, Maria Chavez, smiled. Sandra’s older brother Thomas Fortin, sister Miranda Chavez and grandparents Dolores and José Chavez held hands with Higgins and prayed.

The tree is planted by some picnic tables in the neighborhood park, a couple blocks south of where Sandra’s family lives in Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park.

The now-slender myrtle should reach about 20 feet and live for about 30 years. On the ground by the tree lies a brass plaque inscribed with the words “In remembrance of Sandra Cantu” and the girl’s birth and death dates.

A tree symbolizes new beginnings, said Tracy Unified School District trustee Walter Gouveia. He said he hopes that Sandra’s tree will offer shade for children and families who visit the park.

The tree is Sandra’s second memorial in Tracy. A third one should get built the summer in the form of a $46,500 school playground donated by Landscape Structures Inc. In late May, a Southern California couple donated a hand-built pink-and-purple playhouse to Jacobson School in Sandra’s memory.

Sandra went missing on March 27, prompting a massive citywide search. Ten days later, her body turned up in a black suitcase in a dairy lagoon north of Tracy. Police accused a neighbor woman — 28-year-old Melissa Chantel Huckaby — of kidnapping, raping and murdering the girl.

Huckaby is due back in court in September for a preliminary hearing after pleading not guilty last week to the charges. She remains in solitary confinement at San Joaquin County Jail in French Camp.