WEST PARIS — New details emerged Tuesday in the drunken-driving crash that killed two teenagers in West Paris around midnight Friday.
The man who rented the house where the driver attended a party before the crash was arrested early Saturday morning after refusing to allow police with a search warrant to enter one of the rooms. Jesiah E. Sande, 36, whose address was listed as 38 Porter Road in West Paris on the arrest report, is a cousin to Logan Dam, 19, who lived at the house and was killed in the crash.
The party, described by police as an underage drinking party, was a small group of friends who had gathered to hang out, not to get drunk, said one woman, who wished to remain anonymous. “It wasn’t meant to be a big social event, just a few people,” she said. Only about 10 people came throughout the night, with some staying for just a short time. “There really just wasn’t that much alcohol.”
“It just went the wrong way , really quickly,” she said.
She said the driver, Kristina Lowe, 18, of West Paris was already drunk when she arrived at the gathering at 12 Yeaton Road, where Logan Dam lived with Jesiah Sande’s stepson, Michael Henderson.
Lowe tried to leave the party late Friday night and ran into a tree at the end of the driveway, the woman said.
Lowe’s friends brought her back into the house and took her car keys away from her, the source said. Lowe later took her keys back, and left the house with several other party-goers to follow Rebecca Mason, 16, who wanted to return her father’s truck, which she wasn’t supposed to be driving, the woman said.
Mason, also of West Paris, died in the crash.
Shortly after leaving Mason’s house to return to the party, Lowe’s vehicle crashed off of Route 219. Police have said Lowe was intoxicated, and was texting on a cellphone prior to the crash.
Neither Mason nor Dam had been drinking that night, the source said. “Those kids din’t have any alcohol in their bodies,” — but they happened to be the kids in the back seat, she said .
When responders reached the scene of the crash , Lowe and a third passenger , Jacob Skaff, 22, of South Paris had left the area.
A neighbor called in the crash, according to Officer Nathan Bowie of the Paris Police Department, and informed state police of where the injured woman had gone.
Lowe and Skaff returned to the house of the party together, the source said. They told the others there that they had crashed the car, she said.
“The first thing we asked was where the other two kids were,” she said. “At that point they were in shock” and couldn’t explain what had happened or where the car was. Lowe had lost a shoe and her ankles were bleeding, she said. Skaff was bleeding from his head, and there was blood all over Lowe’s jacket, although it wasn’t clear whether it was her own or someone else’s, the source said.
The friends bandaged Skaff’s head and made Lowe lie down on a couch, and covered her with blankets, the source said.
They called 911 immediately, she said, but couldn’t tell the dispatcher where the car was until later, when Lowe calmed down enough to describe what had happened. The scene was also difficult to locate because the car was not visible from the road, and was hidden by trees down an embankment, West Paris Fire Chief Norm St. Pierre said.
An ambulance found Lowe at the party almost a mile from the crash. Skaff was found by police later, away from the crash and with relatives, St. Pierre said.
State police went to search the house and find out who was driving when the accident happened, the source said. Lowe had initially told police that someone else was driving, according to the source.
When state police arrived at the house with a search warrant, Sande argued with them, according to Bowie of the Paris Police Department, who assisted at the scene.
Bowie wrote in his arrest report that Sande contested the police search warrant. He said two people went to a back room and bottles started clanging. The source said that what the police thought was the sound of bottles was actually someone in the bathroom.
“I advised Jesse he needed to step aside and ask the others to come back in the living room, as the residence was being secured,” Bowie wrote. “Jesiah stepped in the doorway and stated no one was going out back unless they went through him.”
Sande was arrested and charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution at 3 : 45 a.m. Saturday, according to the arrest report. His bail was set at $1,000 unsecured bond. He made bail at the Oxford County Jail about two hours later.
Lowe was found in the back room and taken by ambulance to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway, then to Maine Medical Center in Portland.
At Sande’s home on Tuesday, several bags of bottles and cans sat in the front and back of his rented trailer. The trailer is on a dirt cul-de-sac off Morse Hill Road with several other homes.
So far, Sande is the only person charged in the crash. Sande’s criminal record dates back to April 1998 criminal mischief charges. He was found guilty and fined $200. Since then, Sande has been charged and convicted of criminal mischief, assault and unlawful drug possession.
The crash wasn’t the first for Kristina Lowe. In February 2010 , Lowe was driving a 1997 Chevrolet SUV when, according to police reports, she lost control of the vehicle on an icy road in Paris.
The car “fish tailed on snow covered road. Vehicle skidded off the road striking the ditch. Vehicle rolled over at least once and landed on its roof,” the accident report filed by Paris p olice officer William Grover states. The single-vehicle crash was listed as causing injury.
- The rented home of Jesiah E. Sande at 12 Yeaton Lane in West Paris.
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