Driver Sentenced to Probation for Causing Fatal Crash

Three-year-old James Abney still recognizes his mother in photographs, but he’ll never see her face again. Not since 23-year-old Evan Wilson drank and then went roaring down highway 67 on the wrong side of the road on July 13 and crashed into Brooke Abney’s Civic, killing her and critically injuring her one and only son.

The 35-year-old wife and mother had just come from a family reunion, her mother, Patsy Dierschke, relayed in court on Wednesday. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she spoke quickly, trying to make it through a message she’d typed and brought with her at Wilson’s plea hearing.

“My heart just broke for him…” she said, remembering seeing her grandson in the hospital after the crash and noting how he’d looked around for his mother. “I’m sure he still misses his mommy….he was so young…he still recognizes her when he sees her picture.”

Dressed in khaki pants and a plaid button-down, Evan Wilson faced the bench as Dierschke spoke, waiting for his sentence to be handed down. The 23-year-old was initially indicted on one second-degree count of intoxication manslaughter with a vehicle and one third-degree count of intoxication assault with a vehicle with serious bodily injury.

The indictments were handed down in December last year, however an information (a charge filed by a prosecutor without a grand jury) was filed by 51^st District Attorney Allison Palmer in May that changed the charges to second-degree manslaughter and second-degree injury to a child with reckless serious bodily injury.

After pleading guilty to the charges in the information but prior to sentencing, Dierschke stood in the gallery and addressed the court, holding up a picture of her now-deceased daughter, followed by pictures of son James after his surgeries.

“He is physically healed of all of his injuries, but I don’t know how his mental state is as he grows up,” Dierschke said as she fought back tears.

She recalled for the court how she was asleep in bed on July 13 when her daughter’s husband Dustin called her stepdaughter with sobering news.

“He said there’s been an accident and James has been airlifted to the hospital and Brooke didn’t make it,” Dierschke gasped. Dustin Abney, overcome with emotion, flew out of the courtroom. “I will never get that moment out of my head. Right now I am just trying to speak her name without crying.”

Dierschke told the court how Brooke’s death has affected the family; how her face will never appear on family photos; how she won’t be there to see her child grow up.

For months, Dustin Abney slept on the couch, she said, unable to sleep in the bed he and his wife had shared. He ended up buying a new one. Now, the single father has transitioned into a new job that will allow him to work more flexible hours so he can care for his son, as he struggles to cope with the loss of his wife.

“Her life’s now over because of a person who chose to drink and drive,” Dierschke said.

After she finished, Judge Woodward continued to sentencing, following a 10-year deferred adjudication probation sentence recommended by Palmer. Wilson was also assessed a $5,000 fine, ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous and must complete 240 hours of community service. He is to have no contact with the victim’s family.

Wilson is a student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, where he also works.