Families mourn Goodview teens
Date published: July 18, 2005

Reprinted with Permission The Roanoke Times
By David Harrison and Courtney Cutright

On Sunday, families gathered and struggled to understand how four lives bursting with promise could be snuffed out so suddenly.

Sixteen-year-old Marquee Marie Epperly and her friend, Skylar K. Marie Wilson, 14, spent the day Saturday at Marquee's house, lounging in the pool and giving her mother a hand with the housecleaning.

Then Marquee asked her mother whether she could invite a couple friends over. Windy Epperly said yes and shortly thereafter two boys - Joshua Logan Hale, 16, and Justin Andrew Angell, 15 - pulled up in a red Mitsubishi 3000 GT, Epperly recalled.

"They seemed to be nice little fellas and they sat downstairs and listened to music for 20 minutes or so and then they decided to go to the store," she said.
About five minutes later, the four Goodview teenagers died when the sports car crashed into a truck.

According to state police spokesman Sgt. Bob Carpentieri, the car ran off the right side of the road after rounding a curve going east on Diamond Hill Road about 5 p.m. Joshua, the driver, overcorrected, crossed the double yellow line, and hit a small utility truck that was hauling logs. Carpentieri said rescue workers believed all four teenagers were wearing seat belts.

The truck driver, Tony Conner, 44, of Goodview, was taken to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital as a trauma alert. Carilion spokesman Eric Earnhart was unable to release any information about Conner's condition Sunday.

Since the crash, Windy Epperly has been revisiting the final moments she saw her daughter and her three friends alive. "When they got in the car I said put your seat belts on and she was in the front passenger seat and she waved."

The drive was supposed to be so short that Marquee kept her bedroom slippers on as she got in the car, which was odd, Epperly said, because "she was the type that had to have her nails and her toenails done."

Marquee, a Staunton River High School student, also loved to spend time with her friends and "had the phone glued to her ear at all times," Epperly said.

She had spent Friday night at Skylar's and Skylar was going to spend Saturday night at Marquee's, she recalled.

Marquee also loved to draw and write poems, her mother said. "I was going through her pictures and stuff and I found a book of poems and pictures that she'd done."

On Sunday, families gathered and struggled to understand how four lives bursting with promise could be snuffed out so suddenly.

"He was just a happy-go-lucky kid. He was always smiling, always making other people laugh," Christi Angell said of her nephew, Justin Andrew Angell, also a Staunton River student. He loved the outdoors, fishing, boating and four-wheeling and he was passionate about the Washington Redskins and the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, she said.

"You probably caught him wearing UNC clothes three days of the week at least," said Christi Angell, of Stewartsville. "They're burying him in his UNC jersey and ballcap."

Janice Jachimski, Skylar's aunt, spent the day with family at home in Roanoke remembering how Skylar loved to sing or how she taught the entire family to dance at a July 4th party a couple weeks ago.

Recently Jachimski taught her an old song on the piano called "Mama Sent Me to the Spring." "She'd come over and play it all the time," she said.

Skylar, who was about to start at Staunton River High School in the fall, lost her mother to a heart attack seven years ago, when her mother was 28, Jachimski said.

"It was terrible for her. She was 7 years old and her little sister was 3," she said.

But Skylar persevered and became a substitute mother to her little sister. She also turned her grief into a poem, which begins "I am the oldest child/I wonder if I'll grow up."

Joshua Hale was well on his way to being grown up, said his sister, Laura Seale.

"He was a genuine, smart, very mature young man," she said. Josh loved golf, cars, music and had recently become interested in woodworking, she said. He had been spending the summer playing golf during the days and working in the evenings, said Seale, 28, of Raleigh, N.C.

Although he lived in Bedford County, he went to William Byrd High School in Vinton, where he was a fixture on the golf team, his coach Tim Chocklett said.

"He loves to play and is a good player but, you know, he goes out and plays and if he has a bad day he just shakes it off. He comes out the next day and comes back to play again," Chocklett said. "Josh is the same age as my son, and his name is Josh. It's kind of confusing. We had three Joshes in our top six when we played."

Chocklett has known the family for a long time, he added, and the two Joshes got to be good friends.

Seale said her brother had recently acquired the Mitsubishi. "It was a used car but it was new to him."
According to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles Web site, drivers who are under 18 years old may only carry one passenger under age 18 during the first year they hold their driver's license.

Traffic fatalities involving teenagers have been a problem in the past at Staunton River High School, assistant principal LaWanda Lowry said.

In March 2004, three teenagers - Virginia Creasy, Barbara Mills and Michael Williams - died in an automobile accident in Bedford County. Creasy and Mills were students at Staunton River High School. Williams attended Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke.

In May of this year, Minty Rees Brandley, a teacher at Staunton River High School, died after she crashed into a tree after leaving the school.

Date published: July 18, 2005