A woman accused of running over and killing a Newcastle man is free on bail.
Roxann Berry, 23, of Windsor was freed Tuesday on $5,000 unsecured bond a short time after she was charged with leaving the scene of an accident involving death or personal injury. The felony charge is punishable by up to five years in jail and $5,000 in fines.
Berry is charged with leaving the scene after striking 20-year-old Loren St. Cyr shortly before midnight Sept. 20, 2008, on North Clary Road in Jefferson. She is scheduled to appear Aug. 26 in Lincoln County Superior Court.
An autopsy on St. Cyr confirmed he was hit by two vehicles — the second of which was driven by James McKenna, of Jefferson.
McKenna, who stopped and waited for rescuers, told police St. Cyr was lying in the road. An investigation cleared McKenna of any wrongdoing.
Police investigated numerous tips during the nearly 21 months since the accident, but none of that information led to the first driver to hit St. Cyr, said Lt. Rand Maker of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department.
That changed two weeks ago when a concerned citizen provided new information.
“This information resulted in detectives from the sheriff’s office identifying Ms. Berry as a person of interest,” Maker said. “When confronted by detectives, Ms. Berry eventually admitted to being the driver of the first vehicle that struck Mr. St. Cyr.”
Berry’s name had never come up during the investigation, Maker said.
Berry is the second person arrested in connection with St. Cyr’s death. Thomas C. Nolet, of Gloucester, Mass., who was 20 at the time, was charged in January 2009 with furnishing a place for minors to consume alcohol at a local business.
St. Cyr’s vehicle was found within a mile of where he was struck. A blood test performed on him indicated he had been drinking prior to being hit.
Maker said Nolet and others were with St. Cyr the night he was killed. But there is no indication Berry was in that group, Maker said.
“I don’t believe she was with St. Cyr,” Maker said. “We’re investigating whether she had been drinking prior to the accident. There are still additional witnesses we’re attempting to interview.”
Sheriff’s detectives seized a 1996 Subaru Legacy they believe Berry was driving the night St. Cyr was killed. The Maine State Police Crime Lab in Augusta is examining the vehicle, Maker said.
Maker declined to say whether there is evidence St. Cyr was already dead when he was hit by the second car, but he said there was only a brief delay between the impacts.
“The information we have from the second driver and the information we’ve received from Ms. Berry, I don’t think it was very long,” Maker said.
The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department continues to work with the district attorney’s office, Maker said. There may be additional charges against Berry when the leaving-the-scene charge is presented to a grand jury, he said.
Lincoln County District Attorney Geoffrey Rushlau did not return a phone message Wednesday.
Maker said his department has kept in touch with the St. Cyr family as the investigation progressed.
A woman who answered the phone Wednesday at the home of Marshall St. Cyr, Loren St. Cyr’s father, declined comment.
Speaking at a news conference held days after Loren St. Cyr was killed, his brother, Shawn St. Cyr, couldn’t help but wonder what might have been if the first driver had stopped.
“It was (Loren’s) responsibility not to get run over, but whoever struck him the first time, it was their responsibility to stop,” Shawn St. Cyr said at the time. “Maybe he wouldn’t have survived it either way, but we’ll never know.”
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