AUGUSTA — A Wayne man has been indicted on a manslaughter charge in connection with an alleged drunken driving crash on May 12 that killed 19-year-old Ethan J. Russell and left a second man injured.
Tyler J. Goucher, 22, also was indicted on a charge of aggravated criminal operating under the influence for allegedly causing the death of Russell, a passenger under 21.
The same indictment lists a separate charge of aggravated criminal operating under the influence for causing serious bodily injury to Richard J. Hall Jr., 21, of Mount Vernon, while having a passenger under age 21, and with aggravated assault for allegedly using a motor vehicle to cause injuries to Hall.
The manslaughter charge carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
Goucher’s attorney, Darrick Banda, said Monday that Goucher will be entering pleas of “not guilty” to all the charges.
“We still don’t have all the discovery yet,” Banda said.
Banda also said he had yet to see a copy of the indictment.
At a hearing in August, Goucher was scheduled for a November dispositional conference at the Capital Judicial Center, but Banda said an arraignment on the indictment might be scheduled sooner.
In the meantime, Goucher remains free on bail with conditions that prohibit him from contact with Russell’s family and with Hall and his family, and from driving a motor vehicle.
When investigators reached the late night pickup truck crash on North Road, they found that all three occupants had been ejected. One person was dead and the other two were injured. Police also reported finding a pack of beer under the truck.
At the time, Goucher told police the three men had been drinking at a local restaurant and he “was the most sober” so he was the driver that night, according to an arrest warrant affidavit for Goucher, filed by Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office Deputy K. Scott Mills.
Mills described the crash scene, saying he saw “approximately 300 feet of skid marks on the North Road. The truck then went off the road on the opposite travel lane, rolled over, struck a tree and came to rest against a telephone pole.”
He says the occupants were ejected and the truck, a 2008 Chevrolet Silverado, had “catastrophic damage — the rear axle and pickup bed were no longer attached to the frame and the rest of the truck; all windows, including the windshield were broken. Parts of the truck were spread over a considerable distance along and beside the road.”
An 18-pack of Bud Light beer was “recovered from under the truck,” and the truck was towed and impounded.
Mills wrote that Goucher told another investigator that the three men had been drinking just before the crash, and that they were in his truck “and he was speeding trying to catch up with other friends that left in a different vehicle.”
An examination of the truck’s black box revealed a speed of 85 mph at the time of the crash, but “the speed would not have compensated for the oversized tires on the jacked-up truck.” The affidavit did not indicate what effect the larger tires would have on the speed calculation.
According to the same affidavit, two blood samples taken from Goucher — one at 11:01 p.m. and a second at the hospital at 12:12 a.m. May 13 — showed blood alcohol content of 0.217 percent, and 0.202 percent respectively. The results are about 2.5 times the 0.08 blood-alcohol limit for drivers over 21 in Maine.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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