An Appling man accused of vehicular homicide in a 2020 wreck of a utility-terrain vehicle is pointing at the victim as the one behind the wheel.
The trial of Bentley DeVore, 22, got under way Monday in Columbia County Superior Court. DeVore is charged with causing the death of Morgan Shea, 20, by driving her around recklessly and drunk in the woods near his home.
The case is being prosecuted by McKenzie Gray, a Columbia County native now working for the Middle Georgia Judicial Circuit. Gray was assigned to the case due to a conflict that Columbia County District Attorney Bobby Christine has. Christine had been DeVore’s lawyer in a prior criminal case.
In opening statements Gray repeated what would come up several times during witness testimony, that no one saw or expected Shea to be driving the UTV as they hung out with a circle of friends taking joyrides at DeVore’s father’s house.
DeVore’s attorney, Leah Abbasi, said witnesses would be giving conflicting testimony and no one could put DeVore behind the wheel at the time of the wreck. Evidence was missed and an expert in accident reconstruction will back up the claims, she said.
Abbasi, a criminal defense attorney from Atlanta, said the wreck was an unplanned accident. “No matter how tragic and how horrific this accident is, it doesn’t make it a crime,” she said.
The trial is expected to last at least through Wednesday. Jurors selected included two engineers, a retired Morse code translator, a Department of Energy security officer, an intelligence officer at Fort Gordon and a personal trainer. Two jurors worked in Augusta’s electric vehicle industry.
Among witnesses for the prosecution who testified Monday, Ryan Vaughn, 23, said Shea, who was from Marietta, was his girlfriend of just a few months at the time she died. She’d come to visit and was staying at his parents’ house, Vaughn said.
The DeVore family had just purchased the UTV, Vaughn said. The Can-Am Defender, which witnesses called a “side-by-side,” can go up to 62 miles per hour.
Vaughn said on the day of the incident, the only people he saw driving friends on rides in the UTV were DeVore and his twin brother, Brock. While he and others went inside, DeVore and Shea left in the UTV only moments before the crash, he said.
Hannah Hall was in nursing school at the time and is now an RN working in intensive care. She’d just met Shea at the DeVores’ house but soon would be giving her CPR at the scene of the violent crash, Hall said in testimony.
When she reached the crash site, “Bentley was nowhere to be found,” Hall said.
A few days later, Hall said she received text messages from Brock DeVore telling her to tell police she’d only “assumed” Bentley DeVore was behind the wheel and to not speak further with police, only to the family’s private detective.
Gray said she’d be calling around seven more witnesses when the trial resumes Tuesday morning.
