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By: Robert Sanchez

Issue: May 2011

Section: Feature

Tags: Tony Majestic, Todd Stansfield, Sean Student, Michael Budge, Marvin Gilchrist, crash, awards

Rewrite

Nearly seven years ago, 16-year-old Todd Stansfield was behind the wheel of his car when it smashed into another vehicle on a rural, two-lane road in Douglas County. Four people died. Stansfield lived. And ever since he put pen to paper after the crash, he’s been trying to use the power of his words to make sense of that horrific night.

Todd woke up three weeks after the accident in the intensive care unit at Littleton Adventist. He regained a bit of weight and was transferred to Craig Hospital in Englewood, a world-renowned center for spinal cord injuries. Six weeks after the crash, he was relearning how to walk and could speak well enough to carry on a conversation. His parents thought he was finally ready to know.

One morning at Craig, Todd Sr. led his son, still in a wheelchair, into a conference room and closed the door behind them. Maryanne was already there. A social worker and a psychiatrist, both from Craig, were also there.

Todd’s father spoke. Three friends were with you: Tony. Michael. Sean. You hit another man in a car. They’re all dead. Todd, they said you were going 93 miles per hour.

A man in a dark suit—Todd soon learned he was an attorney—came into the room. Todd would be charged, the man said. Don’t worry about that now. Focus on getting better. Later, Todd wrote:

I didn’t cry, not at first. All I could think about was the hours I had spent trying to remember my accident. The harder I tried, the more I found myself imagining it happen [sic] than anything. I crashed into a tree a hundred different times, in daylight and at dusk, in rain and sunshine. I never imagined crashing into another car, another person.

In the 16 months before Todd’s accident, at least nine teenagers died in Colorado vehicle crashes. Most involved reckless driving; some were alcohol-related. In this particular case, four people were dead, but Todd had survived. And now, it appeared, he would pay.

Returning home from Craig Hospital in late August of 2004, Todd felt like he was in a foreign body. His arms were pockmarked from the broken glass; the brace was still screwed into his skull; the tracheotomy scar was bright red and had just begun to heal. Todd drifted between depression and angst. He’d closed himself off to most people—including his parents—and fixated on his guilt and his fear of a potential prison sentence. Prosecutors by now had intimated that Todd could be tried as an adult, and the sentence could exceed 20 years. Vehicular homicide charges were filed in November. Maryanne worried that her son would get raped or killed—or both—in prison. Inside the Stansfields’ once peaceful home, Todd’s father yelled about the unfairness of it all, about how prosecutors seemed to want a fifth victim.

While facing the felony charges against him, Todd had signed a bond that prevented him from getting within two blocks of his old high school. After he left the hospital, he’d been homeschooled. That winter, Todd and his mother met with Ponderosa administrators to discuss Todd’s options. The vice principal suggested Todd attend a private, Christian high school a few miles from home.

Shut out of his school and shut off from most of his friends, Todd enrolled in Lutheran High School Parker. His parents hired a psychologist who encouraged Todd to write about the grief he was facing. He put pen to paper, and a month later he’d written more than 10,000 words. He met regularly with his psychologist and continued to write. He even started a story about his friends. Months later, he couldn’t find the courage to finish it.

His dead friends’ parents, meanwhile, had already begun defending him. Tony’s parents didn’t want to see their son’s friend hurt further. Ivan Majestic and his wife, Mary, had gotten to know Todd over the years, mostly over breakfasts of Cheerios when Todd stayed the night at their home. Ivan called Sherri Budge, Michael’s mother, and asked if she thought two wrongs could make a right. Sherri did not. The day after the crash, she’d visited Todd at the hospital; he was in a medically induced coma. Sherri held Todd’s hand. “I want you to know that Michael loved you,” she said. “We both love you.”

Even before they spoke on the phone, Ivan and Sherri had misgivings about the investigation. During a briefing a few days after the crash, investigators presented their theories about the wreck, including Todd’s speed. Sherri brought her two brothers along; one was an engineer who helped design vehicle air bags, and he questioned the angles of impact, which would have affected the speed calculations. The measurements had been taken at night, when clues could have been missed. The road was opened for morning traffic and cars were rolling over the accident scene. This isn’t conclusive, Sherri’s brother said.

Tony’s and Michael’s parents were prepared to fight, but Sean Student’s family had receded from the spotlight. Sean’s mother, Karen, showed up at court hearings but stayed away from the other families. Sean’s father and younger brother were rarely seen. While the other boys’ parents fought to keep Todd out of prison, the Students wanted to remain neutral, to let things play out in court.

Sherri and Ivan obtained the investigation files and pored over the 400-plus pages. The pair noticed that investigators hired an independent crash-scene reconstruction team—and just as Sherri’s brother had suggested, the initial speed calculations appeared to be incorrect. A new calculation dropped Todd’s speed from around 93 miles per hour to a range: 68 at the low end, 71 at the high end. No one had told the families about the adjustments. Todd was still nearly 30 miles per hour above the speed limit, but it was dramatically lower than what they’d been led to believe.

Then one night, Ivan called Sherri and told her to flip to the coroner reports. “Do you see what I see?” he asked. Marvin Gilchrist’s blood-alcohol level was 0.076, just below the limit of 0.08. If Gilchrist had been pulled over seconds before the crash, or if he’d lived, he could have been charged with driving while ability impaired.

Comments

I have to agree with the

Submitted by LivingCountry on Sun, 2012-02-19 20:19.

I have to agree with the above comments. While it is nice to know what happed to Todd after the crash, the last I heard he was a vegetable basically after my parents and a few neighbors pulled him from the car, but are the parents, relatives and friends of all those others ok with this article? The "old man's " name by the way is Michael Gilchrist not Marvin. Or so it says on his cross right up the road from my house. I can't really believe they are blaming him for the accident... though I guess it helped Todd out because he can't be blamed completely for it since Gilchrist was supposedly drinking..... but then again a blood alchohol level just below the legal limit VS speeding WAY over the speed limit on a very very hilly road with bumps ... I don't know...glad to see when they talk about Gilchrist later on they say that not to many people drinking or not could have avoided something like that. My mother has a co-worker that was on the phone with one of the students as the crash happend. They said they were going over 100MPH she told them to slow down then the phone went dead. I was in our arena with a friend when we heard a loud noise and ran up to the driveway to see what it was. Saw fire and ran to the house to get my mom and call the police. I was fairly young at the time so my mom asked me to stay in the driveway as she and my dad ran up to help try to pull the kids out before the fire department even got there. I met her halfway between our driveway and the accident with some blankets for the kids and our fire extinguisher, which we found out doesnt work, so there was no fire extinguisher from anything I remember..... It was not this amazing one man thing. The guy that supposedly pulled them out was that firefighter who at first said the crash was Gilchrests fault. He also said the roads were wet and it was hard to see. The roads were not wet. We could see everything down the road clearly. AND it was not "Twilight" as it says here. It was definitely daylight out. And from what my mom says the boys were not "bloodied". I am glad that Todd has made a recovery. But I agree with the comment stating that : I hope he is writing about safe driving. At least some of the time. I can understand though if he were writing about some things for himself as well. I am also glad that , from what I had heard, there was another guy who stayed got out of the car before the accident to stay with his girlfriend. But I am truly sorry for those who lost a friend or family. member during that crash. Just please know that people around here , my parents and our neighbors, did all they could for all of them involved in the crash to try to get them out before the car caught on fire to much to do anything.

Why?

Submitted by spaceystarr1 on Sun, 2011-06-19 21:18.

I am writing for the family of one of the victims of this Horrific crash.  Actually, I'm writing for myself...they have their own thoughts and feelings about that day, and this article.  I know the article wasn't written to glorify Todd Stansfield, but it seems to make the reader want to empathise with how "terrible" his life has been since the accident.  He's in New York...writing... I am writing this 7 years to the day that my cousin,  Sean Student died.  Fathers Day...AGAIN.  3 days after he turned 17...AGAIN...Year after Year.  I guess I am writing to say and ask that an additional article be written to commemorate the 4 lives lost.  To tell how Those families are getting along now, and to emphasize on Teens driving SAFELY and NOT Carelessly!   Cars arent meant for showing off how fast they can go. 

Todd, according to some of the teens at my familys'  house the day after the accident, told me he was driving fast and wreckless the whole night.  One of them even said, "Todd, slow down, you're gonna kill someone!" , and sure enough, less than 2 hours later he killed 3 people and the next one died the next morning.   

My aunt Karen cries EVERYDAY!!!  His younger brother, whom played hockey side by side with Sean since they were 3 and 4 years old, could no longer stand to be on the Ice without his brother there...gave up his hockey carreer when his brother's was taken from him.  I NEVER thought hockey would be dead in our house.  The jerseys and bags still lay on the table in the garage, dusty and untouched. 

Todd took a lot more than just 4 people's lives that day.  He took my aunt's, my uncle's, and my cousin's (Sean's Brother) as well.  And yet, he still gets to call or be with his family on Holidays and special occasions.  For my family, not only is Seany not there, neither are his parents or brother.

I'm sorry to be so brash.  Please understand my pain and frustration.  I want something POSITIVE to come out of all of this.  I hope when Todd writes, he writes about Teens driving safely,  I wanted him to do advocacy speeches...or perhaps this Magazine could promote these things in some ways. I don't want the 4 lives he took to be in vain,  I want his daily endeavors to be in honor of all of them, as well as those of us left here to deal with our losses.  I want my cousin back and our lives back, but I know that will NEVER happen, so in the meantime, I guess I want peace and awareness so that this TERRIBLE TRAGEDY NEVER HAPPENS TO ONE MORE FAMILY!!!

Thanks you for your time.

Spaceystarr

Article about Todd Standfield in may, 2011 issue

Submitted by ahmielak on Thu, 2011-05-26 17:52.

How dare you resurrect the pain of loss for the people Todd Standfield accidentally killed to sell a magazine. Did you ask the parents of those kids before you wrote this article? Did you get permission to run their pictures?

I personally know the parents of one of the kids who were killed.They still have tremendous trouble processing their son's loss.  Now you have not only dredged it up all over again but spread it to your large magazine reader base - to sell magazines with a sensationalist story. 
Shame on you and shame on 5280 for running it.

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