Teen guilty of improper driving in 2-year-old’s death

By Chris Dumond

Published: July 1, 2008

AMHERST — A Madison Heights teen was found guilty of improper driving Tuesday in connection with the Jan. 14 death of a toddler. She was fined $500 and will not go to jail.

According to testimony in the trial, Kaylie Silby was driving on Seminole Drive that morning near Omarion Rose’s Branch Drive home when her cell phone rang.

“I had to take my eyes off the road … I felt a bump,” Silby testified. “I did not think to think it was a two-year-old child.”

The 18-year-old testified in Amherst County General District during a tense and emotional trial that lasted more than three hours before a packed courtroom. She cried throughout the proceedings; so did Omarion Rose’s mother.

Silby, 18, said she had a good view of the road before her phone rang, and it was clear when she looked over to grab the phone. After feeling the car hit something, she said, she checked her mirrors and saw nothing.

Eva Martin testified she saw the boy on the side of the road around 8:30 that morning. When she stopped, her husband, who first thought it was a doll, told her to call 911.

The child later died at UVa medical center.

It wasn’t until Silby saw a commercial for the evening news later that day about the investigation that she realized she could have hit the child, Virginia State Police Special Agent Michael Bryant testified.

Bryant interviewed Silby after her mother’s boyfriend called police to tell them Silby was worried she might have hit the boy.

“She told me she thought it was a pothole, at worst a dog,” Bryant testified.

He also testified her cell phone records backed up her story and that her boyfriend called her around 8:23 a.m., around the time police believe the toddler was hit.

Dr. William Gormley, assistant chief medical examiner for the state forensics office in Richmond, testified an autopsy showed the boy likely was struck once and not hit by more than one car.

Investigators also were able to match pieces of plastic found near the boy to Silby’s turn signal.

Judge Edwin Burnette found Silby not guilty of reckless driving, the original charge.

Burnette said he believed Silby did strike Rose, causing his death. But reaching for a cell phone, he said, “is not illegal, but it may be imprudent.”

The judge acknowledged that his ruling and the subsequent maximum penalty, a $500 fine, may seem inadequate to many, but said he hoped it would make others think twice before taking their eyes off the road to answer a phone.

Silby did not exit the courtroom or the courthouse through a public entrance and was not available for comment.

“It was a bad situation,” her mother, Belinda Silby, said before leaving.

Katrina Jennings, Rose’s godmother, said she was angry after the trial because Silby did not apologize or say she was sorry.

Jennings said the family was happy with the job Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Maddox did in presenting the case.

“A life is gone, though,” she said. “You can never bring it back.”

Prosecutors earlier said reckless driving, a misdemeanor carrying as much as a year in jail, was the strongest charge they could bring against Silby because there was not enough evidence to prove she knew she had hit the boy.

Maddox said the family was obviously upset by the outcome.

“This is just a tragic case all the way around,” she said. “We respect the judge’s decision.”

While state police investigators and her staff put in many hours preparing for the trial, she said she always knew the improper driving ruling was a possibility.

“It came down to driver inattention,” she said. “The judge equated that with reaching for a cup of coffee and reaching for a cell phone is not illegal.”

Legislative proposals concerning the use of cell phones were hot issues in the 2007 General Assembly. Ultimately, though, the bill did not pass.

Maddox said she will do her part to use Rose’s death as a case study for why such legislation is needed.