Last Thursday night, June 16, friends and family gathered on the Naples causeway for a candlelight vigil to mourn the death of three youths who died in a car crash in Sebago early that morning. It was the start of a week of remembrance services in which the Lakes Region showed sorrow for three lives lost because of a deadly mix of drinking, driving and eluding police.

Mourners released balloons with written prayers attached and set candles afloat on Long Lake in memory of Joshua Plummer, 23 of Naples, Matthew Waugh, 21 of Bridgton and Tamera Hearn, 18 of Lafayette, Oregon. All three died on impact when the Chevy S-10 they had been riding in crashed into a roadside tree near Long Beach in Sebago.

According to Cumberland County Sheriff’s Deputy Raymond McIntire, recklessly drove his pick-up through a stop sign in Naples onto Route 114 eastbound.

After he caught up to the vehicle, McIntire activated his sirens and lights at which point Plummer tried to evade McIntire in what quickly became a high-speed chase down winding backroads and sections of Route 114, with speeds exceeding 80 miles per hour. McIntire fell behind and moments later came upon the truck, its cab completely collapsed from impact with the tree claiming the lives of all three passengers.

“He was a good kid. They all were,” said Cory Waugh, cousin of Matthew. “It’s a tragic thing to happen to anyone.”

Around 7:30 p.m., Matthew Waugh picked up clothes from his mother’s house in Bridgton, telling her that he was going to spend the night elsewhere. He had recently moved back in with his mother, Kathy Manchester, after living in Westbrook for six months with former girlfriend Lori Honan. On his way out the door, he told his mother that he loved her.

“You couldn’t ask for a better kid,” Manchester said. “He was a very friendly person and loved his family.”

Relatives said that Waugh had recently “pulled his life together” pursuing a GED at the Bridgton Learning Center and had been promoted as a landscaper at Clemett Brothers in Bridgton.

Cory describes Plummer and Waugh as “old friends.” They had gone to Lake Region High School together and worked similar jobs, with Plummer working at P&K Sand and Gravel in Naples and Waugh at Clemett Brothers. They often went on dirt bike excursions in Kingfield. They both loved music and the outdoors. In the summer, they enjoyed fishing and hunting together. In the winter, Waugh was an avid snowboarder and Plummer, a skier.

Plummer’s passion was downhill skiing, said his mother Sarah. He was the President of the Pleasant Mountain Ski Club and volunteered as an instructor at Shawnee Peak Ski Resort.

“He would ski backwards and laugh at me because I couldn’t keep up,” Sarah Plummer said. “He’d come off a jump and do some trick and scare the daylights out of me. I never knew if he was going to land it or not.”

Plummer leaves behind a daughter Kaitlyn who will soon be three years old. Sarah Plummer says her son was a “fantastic dad who worshipped his little girl.” Plummer shared custody of Kaitlyn with her mother Heather Leighton of Bridgton.

Plummer’s life was troubled by a series of terrible accidents, however. In 1993, his father Chris Plummer died in a car accident in Naples when Joshua was only 12 years old. In 2000, Plummer’s truck slid into a group of pedestrians who were walking down the road during a severe snowstorm. One of the pedestrians died in the accident, however charges were dropped due to the circumstances. Then just last year, Plummer’s best friend, Chris Babbitt, died in a motorcycle accident in Naples on his way to school.

Shortly after his friend’s death, Plummer rented a room from Babbit’s mother, Debora Wickham, until his own unexpected death.

“He tried really hard to please people and do nice things for people,” Sarah Plummer said. “I don’t think he ever did it for a selfish reason. He did it because he could.”

Days before Thursday’s accident, Tamera “Tami” Hearn and friend Patricia “Tricia” Nicholas had flown from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine to spend a year with Nicholas’ father on Sebago Lake. Having just graduated from McMinnville High School in Oregon, Hearn and Nicholas planned on traveling cross-country once they made enough money for the adventure.

Pati McGowan, Hearn’s stepmother, said the two friends “were joined at the hip and together constantly.” They were known as the “Twin T’s,” shared a dog, Little Tonka, together and planned to get identical hibiscus flower tattoos once they both turned 18.

On the night of the accident, Hearn and Nicholas met up with Plummer and Waugh, whom they’d known from a previous summer spent on Sebago Lake, at a party off Raymond Cape Road. According to Nicholas, Plummer, Waugh and Hearn had squeezed into the cab of the truck to go off to the store. Having just turned 18, Hearn went along for the ride so she could purchase her first legal pack of cigarettes.

“She went to go buy a pack of cigarettes, but she didn’t even smoke,” Nicholas said. “She just wanted to buy them because she was eighteen.”

At first, Nicholas and the two other girls at the party hopped into the back of the truck for the ride, but then decided that it would be unsafe and got out.

Nicholas said that she later heard the sirens go by the house and began to get worried.

“I heard the sirens and the truck,” Nicholas said. “I thought they’d just been pulled over.”

As Nicholas walked home to her father’s house that night, she called the police several times to report that her friend was missing. Only later, did she find out about the tragedy.

Chase timeline

Though the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department has yet to wrap up its investigation or receive a toxicology report on Plummer, many details have been released concerning the chase and the events leading up to the triple fatality collision.

According to authorities, the pursuit started at the intersection of State Park Road and Route 114 in Naples at 12:15 a.m. Deputy Raymond McIntire was traveling toward Naples on Route 114 when Plummer’s truck passed him after driving through a stop sign at State Park Road. After a few moments, McIntire made a U-turn and headed south on Route 114 in order to watch Plummer’s operation of the vehicle.

“The deputy observed a traffic violation, and it took a while for him to catch up with the vehicle,” Capt. William Rhoads said. “He followed to observe the operation of the vehicle, to see if the driver was impaired.”

According to Rhoads, McIntire followed the vehicle as it sped south on Route 114 past Trickey Pond Road and Camp Mataponi taking a sharp right turn on Burnell Road. The deputy, after about three miles, finally flashed his blue lights when he saw the truck fishtail at a sharp corner, indicating reckless driving behavior.

“Once McIntire turned on his blue lights, Plummer started picking up speed,” Rhoads said.

The truck, which was traveling between 45 and 50 miles per hour on Burnell Road, then took a left on Kimball Corner Road, which leads into North Sebago. The deputy backed off, according to Rhoads, due to several sharp corners and the presence of deer. The chase then sped back onto Route 114 with Plummer running a stop sign at the intersection of Kimball Corner Road and Route 114.

The truck picked up speed on Route 114 with Plummer at one point going 82 miles an hour through a straight section of Sebago near Richard’s Dairy Delight.

Rhoads said Deputy McIntire once again backed off from a close chase once speeds got high. The deputy fell behind the truck as it entered a sharp, right turn headed into the flat, straight section of road near Long Beach where Plummer lost control and crashed.

“I’m not sure why (McIntire) backed off; we’re still reviewing that. Maybe he felt uncomfortable with those speeds. I’m just not sure,” Rhoads said.

Just as the police pursuit entered Long Beach, Plummer failed to navigate the sharp right-hand turn near the edge of Sebago Lake and collided with a roadside tree next to the Rustic Barrel Restaurant.

During the chase, two deputies, Keith Cook and deputy-in-training Peter Anderson, were driving from Standish on Route 114 after being mobilized by a dispatch supervisor. They spread a spike mat across Route 114 near Jordan’s Store in Sebago at 12:23 a.m. Another deputy was en route from Naples on Route 114 and arrived shortly after the crash. Plummer’s vehicle, however, never made it to the spike mat, crashing about one mile north at 12:25 a.m.

While police are investigating the crash scene and events leading up to the accident, Sheriff’s department officials are defending McIntire’s pursuit of the pick-up.

“There was obvious probable cause for the pursuit,” Chief Deputy Kevin Joyce said. “OUI, reckless driving, threatened use of violence all are allowable factors for a police pursuit. People will always say that a chase isn’t justified, but imagine what people would say if we let this truck go, which was speeding when we first saw it operating erratically, and didn’t try to stop it and it got into an accident down the road because of our failure to do our job. We had an articulable suspicion. We had to pursue. In an unfortunate situation like this, you’re kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

Sarah Plummer said she is not in favor of high-speed chases in any situation because she believes they tend to end badly.

“I don’t condone my son’s behavior and know he was in the wrong with what he did. But I don’t think it had to end up this way,” Plummer said. “If an officer assumes that they are under the influence because they swerve or drive erratically, why would they pursue them (in a high-speed chase)? If they know their driving ability is impaired, why would they test that driving ability? It’s a contradiction in common sense.”

Rhoads said Internal Affairs at Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department is currently investigating the accident scene and measuring the chase route. The District Attorney’s office was called immediately to do their own investigation and witness the accident scene, Rhoads said.

“It’s standard procedure to make a thorough review and perform accident reconstruction,” Rhoads said. “They’re starting from where the deputy first saw the truck go through the first stop sign and going from there. In all, it’s about 10 miles.”

During the initial post-accident inspection of the vehicle, police found empty beer bottles but none of the beer that the three bought at a store in Naples. Rhoads wasn’t willing to speculate on what happened to the two 12-packs the victims allegedly bought.

Plummer’s toxicology report has yet to be released by the authorities. Plummer had been arrested in May 2003, for OUI, but not convicted and summonsed for furnishing liquor to a minor in November of 2003. Plummer was, however, operating under suspension at the time of the accident.

“He made the choice. We all make choices,” Cory Waugh said of Plummer. “He hit the gas when he could have pulled over. I hope people can learn from this.”

A burial service for Matthew Waugh took place at Crooked River Cemetery in Naples on Wednesday. David McGowan of Tommy’s Variety in Naples is currently taking donations to help the Waugh and Plummer family.

“He’s in a better place now,” Cory Waugh said of his cousin. “He had a heart of gold. He will be missed.”

Back in Oregon this week, Nicholas prepared for her best friend’s funeral on what should have been a day of celebration – Nicholas’ 18th birthday.

“She was so beautiful you had to look at her twice,” Nicholas said of her best friend.

Nicholas has started her own campaign against drunk driving, producing flyers centered around the tragedy, with a picture of Hearn and caption that warns: “This could be your best friend.”

In honor of their beloved “Tami,” Nicholas and Hearn’s boyfriend, Ben Ream, intend on getting matching tattoos with the hibiscus flower and Hearn’s name.

Sarah Plummer, Kathy Manchester and Debora Wickham all wore pink ribbons in memory of Hearn at the funeral service for Joshua Plummer on Monday.

During the service, his uncle Bruce Plummer gave these parting words about his nephew, “My vision of Josh will always be the big smiling grin and the small wave whenever you’d say hi to him.”

Sarah Plummer is hoping to share custody of little Kaitlyn with her mother until the child has adjusted to the situation.

“One thing we can do for Josh is to teach Kaitlyn what a great dad she had and always hold on to the happy times she had with him,” Sarah Plummer said.

Plummer added that her heart goes out to the other parents and hopes that perhaps the tragedy will have an impact on the way people in the Lakes Region think about drinking and driving.

“It has happened so many times in this area,” she said. “If kids make the choice not to drink and drive from this, then at least some good has come from it.”

Joshua Plummer and daughter Kaitlyn appear on a program for Plummer’s funeral.

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