The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 10

A-10 The Orlando Sentinel, Sunday, September 18, 1994 Investigating officer's murder theory slowly unravels Mi 1 Toll attendants were shocked when Todd Dumas pulled up in his red Honda, holding up the shattered, bloodied windshield with his hand. TRAGEDY from A-1 21-year-old friend. Anderson's group eventually moved on to Jigglers, another Church Street bar, where she met James Vaughn 26. He offered her a ride home. As Anderson said later, she thought Vaughn was a "nice, young, rich guy," and she left with him in his 1993 Corvette.

On Interstate 4 near Florida's Turnpike, the car spun out of control. Anderson told police she did not remember anyone forcing the car off the road but added, "I was so drunk, I really wasn't paying a lot of attention." Whatever the cause, the Corvette ended up backed into a culvert, taking in water. The couple couldn't push it free, so Vaughn grabbed his cellular telephone and called the American Automobile Association. "The first thing he told them is, 'I need a tow truck; I was run off the Bass said. He also called his wife, at home in Lake Mary.

He told her he had been taking a woman to her home, was run off the road but was unhurt. Vaughn's wife would never hear his voice again. The wrecker didn't show, which annoyed Vaughn. He left Anderson in the Corvette and walked to the highway. Anderson waited 15 or 20 minutes, then got out to look around.

She didn't see Vaughn, and when she tried to get back into the car, she found the doors locked. Anderson went to the roadside and stuck her thumb in the air, which had the immediate effect of halting three drivers, all eager to give her a ride home to Kirkman Road. She went with two men in a minivan who told her they were off-duty police. They took her straight home. James' story Interstate 4 near the Turnpike is dark when it's a moonless night, as it was that night.

Vaughn Turnpike. He saw the Honda after midnight, watching in amazement as the battered car rolled up. Dumas was hanging out the driver's window so he could see, holding up the shattered, bloodied windshield with his right hand. Springer tried to hand Dumas a toll ticket to carry down the road, but Dumas, confused, was fumbling with some pennies, attempting to pay a toll. Springer explained that Dumas did not need to pay at that point and suggested he park the car.

Dumas, who smelled of alcohol, began to park, then fled down the road, Springer told police. Denise Smith and Annival Medina were working at the tollbooth at south Orange Blossom Trail when Dumas arrived. He had no money and parked so could he fill out a nonpayment form. Dumas kept apologizing, wouldn't look the toll attendants in the eye and smelled of alcohol, they told police. He gave them his wallet, and while Smith and Medina looked at his license, Dumas returned to the Honda and left, heading for his home in south Orange County's Williamsburg neighborhood.

At about 3 a.m., Dumas called Anderson. He told her he had "bumped up" the car, she recalled for police. Anderson could hear Dumas' mother screaming in the background. The investigation At 7 a.m., passers-by spotted Vaughn's body. Bass soon arrived and knew immediately her victim was no transient.

Near him was a cellular phone and brown leather loafers. He wore a white, button-down Polo shirt and jeans. "Where did he come from? That was the big question that day," Bass said. Bass knew nothing of the Corvette. The wrecker driver had spotted it during the night and towed it away.

In the grass near Vaughn's body, however, was the distinctive Third, Dumas probably was in no condition to accurately aim the Honda at Vaughn, Bass said. Al-though his blood-alcohol could not be tested that night, the Turnpike workers said he appeared drunk, Bass said she is convinced Dumas was driving only with his parking lights a common sign of a drunken driver. Evidence for that thought comes from the headlamp filaments, which were intact when the Honda was seized. When autos crash with their headlights on, the hot filaments distort from impact. Fourth, the car may have been going too fast for the driver to pick off Vaughn.

Damage to the Honda indicates it was traveling at 60 to 75 mph at impact. In the darkness on 1-4, Dumas could not have seen Vaughn and reacted in time to run into him, Bass thinks. Finally, tire tracks at the scene indicate the Honda was out of control. If anything, the driver tried to avoid hitting Vaughn by veering too quickly back onto the road. "He didn't aim at the guy," Bass said.

He was already out of control when he hit him. What Bass said she found was a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story, a case that required all eight years of her experience to solve. She turned the file over to the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's office, which decided Wednesday to formally charge Dumas with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Vehicular homicide, defined as the killing of a human by driving recklessly, carries a 5-year sentence and a $5,000 fine. Hernandez, speaking for Dumas, a University of Miami graduate now attending an out-of-state master's program, called the acci dent a tragedy for all involved.

"The case is a tragedy, obviously, for the Vaughn family, and for the Dumas family," Hernandez said. "It's pitch black along 14. There was an accident on 14 that night. What he hit, and what he knew, is a matter for the jury." Dumas Vaughn knew the wrecker driver would have difficulty seeing his car. The wrecker wasn't anywhere close.

Vaughn had told the auto club he wiped out near Kaley Street, but his car was more than three miles west. As he walked along the highway, about 1,000 feet east of his car, Vaughn called the auto club again. The operator put him on hold for three minutes 12:15 to 12:18 a.m. and returned to find Vaughn gone. The line still was open, but the operator heard only the sound of cars roaring by.

Vaughn died on hold. Todd's story Dumas had driven Anderson to Church Street in his mom's red Honda CRX, which he parked in a garage. When he left alone at night's end, he didn't bother to pay, police said. Instead, he crashed through the toll gate and got on the interstate, police said, heading toward the spot where Vaughn's Corvette had spun off the road. Police say Vaughn probably never felt the crash that killed him.

The first impact was to his legs, broken by the bumper. The final, fatal impact was to his face, which slammed into the windshield and roof. The time between the two impacts was 12 one-hun-dredthsofasecond. The car did not brake, and Vaughn's lifeless body slid off into the grass. David Springer hands out toll tickets at the 1-4 entrance to the emblem of a Honda and tiny flecks of red paint.

When police put out the word they were looking for a smashed-up red Honda, the Turnpike workers soon called about Dumas. Police heard loud sobbing when then went to Dumas' door. The sobs stopped when they rang the doorbell. They rang twice before Dumas opened the door. He showed them to the car but declined to give a statement.

Police charged him with leaving the scene of a fatal accident, a felony that carries a 15-year sentence and a $10,000 fine. Bass quickly identified Vaughn through his cellular telephone number. Soon she learned of Anderson, and how the woman, Dumas and Vaughn had been in the same bar minutes before the accident. Bass began thinking Vaughn's death could be a murder. Her working theory was that Dumas was furious at losing his girlfriend, jumped in his car to take revenge, ran Vaughn off the road, circled around and rammed Vaughn with the car.

"That would be completely absurd," said Manuel Hernandez, Dumas' attorney. "This is a very good kid. He's never had any problems. There're a lot of question as to what happened." As Bass investigated, the murder theory unraveled. First, Dumas had no motive.

Bass interviewed nine or 10 people who work with Dumas and Anderson at the Olive Garden restaurant on International Drive. All said Dumas and Anderson simply were friends, not lovers. Second, Bass thinks, Vaughn was not run off the road. She thinks he told that to the auto club to cover his drinking. His blood-alcohol level was measured later at more than twice the legal limit, and it struck Bass odd that Vaughn did not seem frantic when he called the AAA "The impression I got from listening to the tape is that he was agitated, not scared, because his car was being ruined," she said.

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