CRIME

Trial examines fatal stolen car crash

Bruce Vielmetti
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

News of a teen killed in a stolen car crash had become a familiar story by January; it was the seventh such tragedy since November.

Six teens were speeding north on Port Washington Road when the 2004 Toyota Camry hit another car, went airborne, flipped and smashed into a house  “like a cruise missile,” a prosecutor said.

Deanthony Parks, 16, was ejected and died at the scene. Police would later say Parks had been arrested before for car theft and was listed on the Auto Theft Robbery Task Force since August 2015. But he wasn’t driving the day he died.

On Thursday, Parks’ friend told jurors he wasn’t driving, either.

Xavier McFarland, 19, is on trial for hit-and-run causing death and driving with a revoked license. From a hospital bed, he initially told police Parks was driving.

He admitted Thursday that it was a lie, because he didn’t want his other friend, Joshua Brown, “to get in trouble over an accident.”

But Brown and two now 16-year-old girls who also were in the car told police McFarland was at the wheel.

Six teens speeding in a stolen car hit another vehicle. One kid dies. The driver of the stolen vehicle is on trial this week. Prosecutors say the car was speeding north on Port Washington Road in  a stolen 2004 Toyota Camry about 10:45 a.m. on Jan. 23 when he hit an Oldsmobile that had pulled out from Capitol Drive. The Camry launched into the air, spinning several times as it crossed southbound lanes before crashing into a house that had a day care center.

He insisted Thursday that it was Brown, and said the only witness who testified against McFarland, Keviana Turks-Wilder, is Brown’s girlfriend. Brown refused to testify, citing his Fifth Amendment right against possible self-incrimination and still refused after being granted immunity.

McFarland said Brown, Parks and a third boy picked him up in the Camry about 6 a.m. that day, that they drove around until picking up Turks-Wilder and another girl about 8 a.m., and then drove around some more until the crash, about 10:45 a.m. He said he didn’t know at the time that the car had been stolen.

According to the criminal complaint, the Camry hit an Oldsmobile that had pulled out from Capitol Drive, launched into the air, spun several times as it crossed southbound lanes, then crashed into a house that had a day care center. The other driver and her passengers were not seriously injured.

Video from a nearby building later showed Parks, 16, flying out of the rear driver’s side window head first. He was found dead between the Camry and the day care. The building had such extreme damage from the car that it was later condemned.

After the car came to rest on its roof, the rest of the occupants are seen in  the video crawling out of the driver’s side windows and running from the scene.

Within a few days, the girls who had escaped the crash told a detective that McFarland was the driver. One said that after news of Parks’ death, McFarland reacted on social media by posting “LMFAO,” which stands for “Laughing my (expletive) ass off.”

Detectives arrested McFarland at home on Jan. 29 and took him directly to the hospital for treatment of spinal injuries he suffered in the crash. He admitted being in the car but said Parks had been driving. He had no response when detectives showed him a picture of Parks being ejected from the rear driver’s side window.

This portrait commemorates Deanthony Parks, who died in a January car crash.

His attorney later gave notice that he intended to try to show Brown was the person responsible for the crime, but Assistant District Attorney Karl Hayes objected to the proposed offer of proof: a detective’s early suggestion of suspicion toward Brown because someone “outside the situation,” meaning not a passenger, had said Brown was driving. That would be hearsay, Hayes pointed out.

Instead, McFarland was left to take the stand and claim Brown was driving.

When Hayes, on cross-examination, suggested McFarland had to come up with a new story after seeing the photo of Parks flying out the rear-seat window, McFarland replied, “No, I realized I had to tell the truth.”

The state’s case also included DNA taken from the driver’s seat area of the Camry that matched McFarland and no one else from inside the car. McFarland said his hand was cut by broken glass as he crawled out the driver’s window from the passenger’s seat after the crash. He denied posting any comments on Facebook after hearing on the news that Parks had died.

McFarland, who has one prior adult and four prior juvenile convictions, faces up to 18 years in prison if found guilty of both counts.

The jury is expected to deliberate by Friday.