Carol Sharrow of Sanford appeared at York County Superior Court in Alfred on Friday, entering pleas of not guilty and not criminally responsible in connection with the death of Douglas Parkhurst. She is charged with striking Parksurst as she drove off a Sanford ball park in June after careening around the field as a game was being played. TAMMY WELLS/Journal Tribune
ALFRED — An attorney for Carol Sharrow entered pleas of not guilty and not criminally responsible to manslaughter and more than a dozen other charges Friday in connection with the hit-and-run death of a West Newfield man as she drove off a Sanford ball field in June.
Police said Sharrow drove her maroon Honda through the main gate and onto the field at Goodall Park on June 1 where a Babe Ruth baseball league game was being played. A video posted on Facebook that night by a witness shows players scattering as Sharrow careened around the field.
Police said Sharrow hit Douglas Parkhurst as she exited the ballpark, and kept driving. Parkhurst, 68, died on the way to the hospital.
Sharrow, 51, did not speak during her brief appearance before York County Superior Court Justice John O’Neil on Friday afternoon. Annie Stevens, who along with Robert Ruffner is representing the Sanford woman, entered the pleas on her client’s behalf.
Stevens, outside the courthouse after her client’s brief appearance, said a not criminally responsible plea means the defendant, at the time of the incident, did not have the ability to appreciate the wrongness of her behavior.
“She has come a long way,” said Stevens, who said Sharrow has been engaged in treatment. “She is in a very different mental state.”
“Carol was clearly delusional at the time,” said Ruffner.
A York County grand jury handed up a 15-count indictment against Sharrow last month. As well as manslaughter, the indictment charges elevated aggravated assault, driving to endanger, leaving the scene of an accident and 11 counts of reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon.
During her June court appearance, Sharrow was ordered held on $500,000 bail and was required to undergo a mental health evaluation. In October, a judge ordered Sharrow to remain at Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta, where she has been receiving treatment, as the case proceeds, court documents show.
Sharrow has a history of mental illness, Sanford Police said in the days following the incident.
Sanford Detective Sgt. Matthew Jones in June said Sharrow was reported missing after leaving a Sanford restaurant in 2014 and was found in the woods by police 24 hours later.
Attorneys Annie Stevens and Robert Ruffner spoke with reporters about their client Carol Sharrow outside York County Superior Court on Friday. Sharrow is the Sanford woman accused of striking and killing a West Newfield man after she drove around a ballfield while a game was being played, striking Douglas Parkhurst as she exited the field. TAMMY WELLS/Journal Tribune
A neighbor who lived in the same Sanford apartment building as Sharrow, Michael Horr, said he knew her as a very caring person. They had been neighbors for a couple of years.
“She had some problems,” said Horr in an interview at the apartment building a few days after the incident. “I felt very bad when I found out what happened.”
Parkhurst, according to the Portland Press Herald, confessed in 2013 to an unsolved hit-and-run death of a 4-year-old girl in Fulton, New York, in 1968, when he was 18-years-old. He was a Vietnam War veteran and a grandfather and had moved to West Newfield about five years ago.
A dispositional conference has been scheduled for Dec. 13.
— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 780-9016 or twells@journaltribune.com.
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