Virginia teen sneaked out of house, took family car and died in crash
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Version 0 of 1. When Shannon Pitre-Lopez turned in Saturday night, her 15-year-old son Wilberto Pitre III was home with her, on the phone with friends. She awoke at 4 a.m. Sunday, when police knocked on her door in rural Aldie, Va., with tragic news: Wilberto had sneaked out of the house, taken her car, picked up a friend and crashed while fleeing from a traffic stop. He died at the scene, on a residential street in Sterling. Now Wilberto’s parents are agonizing over what their teenage son was thinking when he decided to get behind the wheel of his mother’s car — despite not having a driver’s license — and why he decided to speed away when he saw the flash of a police cruiser’s lights. “We weren’t in the car with him. We don’t know what was said between him and his friend,” said his father, Wilberto Pitre Jr. “What happened after that that made him think that he could try and run?” Kraig Troxell, a spokesman for the Loudoun County sheriff’s office, said Monday that a deputy saw Wilberto driving with the headlights off on East Beech Road in Sterling. The deputy tried to stop the car, a two-door Honda sedan. Twice, Wilberto appeared to be pulling over and then drove back onto the road, Troxell said. The car then sped away. The deputy followed but caught up only after the Honda had crashed into a parked car with such force that it was pushed into two others. The parked cars were not occupied. Wilberto’s passenger, a 15-year-old girl from the Sterling area, was flown to Inova Fairfax Hospital with serious injuries. Police hoped to interview her Monday. Troxell said that Wilberto had neither a provisional license nor a learner’s permit. He lived with his mother and stepfather at a rented cottage on farmland in Aldie; his mother said Wilberto had been practicing behind the wheel within the confines of the farm and was preparing to get his learner’s permit. Wilberto’s parents described him as an energetic teen with a sense of humor. He was a sophomore at Loudoun Valley High and played saxophone in the school band. He also played in another band he briefly formed with friends. He taught himself how to play the guitar, his father said. Loudoun Valley students mourned the loss of their classmate on Monday, schools spokesman Wayde Byard said. Extra counselors were dispatched to the school to help. The sophomore aspired to be a psychologist, a role that his parents said seemed fitting for his empathetic nature. He served as an emotional bedrock for friends, helping them through tough times. “He was going to be a psychologist because he knew he was good at helping people think about their lives,” Pitre-Lopez said. After his grandmother survived breast cancer, he and his sisters streaked their hair with bright pink to promote breast cancer awareness. “He had an energy that was just excitement, and he wanted people to know that they were loved.” His parents said they don’t understand why Wilberto would have run from police. His father suspects that Wilberto was worried about getting into trouble for taking his mother’s car without permission, but even that seems out of character. “The decision to gun it? I just don’t know where that would have ever come from. He was always quick to take responsibility. If he screwed up, he’d come and tell me,” Pitre said. “We try to raise our kids to do the right thing, and sometimes maybe we push them too hard, to the point that when they’re doing something wrong, when they’re on the verge of getting in trouble, they freak out.” Pitre-Lopez said she is stunned. She reflected mournfully on the fact that what could have been a teachable moment — had her son stopped for police — turned into a tragedy. And she wants teenagers to know that such choices can have dire consequences. “He didn’t get a second chance,” she said. “Kids, you may not get a second chance. So please don’t run from people who want to help.” She said she has no idea what her son thought might happen if he had been stopped: “I wouldn’t dream to know what he was thinking. He would never want to be in this position, where we were hurting.” Faiz Siddiqui contributed to this report. |