Man pleads guilty to DWI in fatal crash
                    Clarksville resident, 20, crossed center line after police spoke to him
                    at party
                    ____________________________________________________

                   By Del Quentin Wilber
                           Sun Staff

                    A 20-year-old Clarksville man pleaded guilty yesterday to killing a
                    Cooksville woman in a car accident in November 1998 while he was
                    drunk.

                    Justin D. Wilson pleaded guilty to negligent homicide by a motor
                    vehicle while intoxicated. He could be sentenced to five years in
                    prison, but prosecutors said they will ask Judge Diane O. Leasure to
                    sentence Wilson to 18 months in the county jail.

                    Wilson was driving his Toyota pickup truck north on Route 32 near
                    Burnt Woods Road about 6: 50 a.m. Nov. 28 when he crossed the
                    center line and struck a car traveling south. The driver of that car,
                    Mary Lou Shumaker, 51, was killed.

                    Wilson was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore,
                    where his blood alcohol level was 0.14 about three hours after the
                    accident, said prosecutor Danielle Duclaux. That put Wilson above
                    the legal limit of 0.10.

                    About 4 a.m. that day, a Sykesville police officer responded to a
                    house party and noticed Wilson appeared to be drunk when "he
                    staggered over toward the door," Duclaux said.

                    The officer told Wilson that he would return later "with charging
                    documents," Duclaux said. The officer felt that Wilson was too
                    intoxicated to understand the situation and the officer left the scene,
                    Duclaux said.

                    A few hours later, Wilson veered across the center line of Route 32
                    in Howard County, missed another car and struck Shumaker's.

                   Originally published on Mar 23 2000