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(Mail Tribune / Jim Craven) From tragedy, back to life She used meth to escape reality after causing a fatal crash By SARAH LEMON Mail Tribune Drug use wasn't blamed for Reagan DeShane's deadly encounter with a pack of motorcyclists. DeShane's head-on collision with methamphetamine came only with the realization that she had killed two people and wrecked other lives, including her own. "I was scared ... I knew I was going to jail, and I just turned to drugs to feel better, I guess," DeShane said. DeShane, 30, said she had never really liked meth and used it under a boyfriend's coercion three days before the morning of Sept. 25, 2004. She said the stimulant's effects had long since worn off by the time, in a borrowed car, she sped toward an unfamiliar corner of Highway 62 near Trail, skidded on gravel and fishtailed out of control. "It seemed like forever," she said, recalling how the two-door Mazda sports car whipped across the highway for about a half-mile before a group of motorcycles came into view. Advertisement To avoid the bikers, DeShane said she tried to drive off the road, but the car did a 180-degree spin and stalled. "They had no time to move," she said. Two motorcycles riding in the day's charity run to Crater Lake smashed into the car. The impact killed 54-year-old David Tabor of Rogue River, before emergency medical crews arrived. Another Rogue River resident, 57-year-old Dennis Wayne Vittaco, died four days later at a Portland hospital. His 52-year-old wife, Darlene, who was riding as a passenger on her husband's bike, was seriously injured. DeShane said she ran to Dennis Vittaco, who was lying on the ground in front of the car, moaning. She remembers repeatedly apologizing, crying and pacing the accident scene for hours. "It was the worst day of my life," DeShane said. "I couldn't even believe it was happening." She only realized about three hours later that Tabor, who ended up behind the car, was dead. As medical workers covered him with a blanket, Tabor's head rolled to the side, exposing still-open eyes staring in her direction, DeShane recalled. "I thought, 'Oh, God, I'm going to jail forever.' " But DeShane wasn't arrested. Once she admitted to using meth and smoking marijuana a few days earlier, Oregon State Police subjected her to three field-sobriety tests, all of which she passed. About seven hours after her car went spinning out of control, DeShane was allowed to leave the crash scene with her mother. That night marked the point when drugs sent DeShane spinning out of control. "Two weeks went by that I don't even remember," she said. Months of daily meth use followed a "handful of pills" that a friend fed her the night of the crash. While meth offered her only refuge from guilt, DeShane was coherent enough to realize it was a temporary fix. "I just knew the day was going to come when they were going to come looking for me," she said. Three months after killing Tabor and Vittaco, DeShane was indicted for criminally negligent homicide and arrested. She spent three weeks in jail before family bailed her out. Her Shady Cove apartment sold, DeShane took refuge with a "drug dealer," the same man who had lent her his car, wrecked in the September 2004 crash. This time he gave her all the meth she wanted. DeShane used more and more of the drug, even when she was due to visit her probation officer. Another friend in the dealer's ramshackle house showed DeShane how to fool the probation department's drug test by hiding a container of someone else's urine in her clothing. Worried that she would get caught in the act, DeShane skipped probation visits and failed to appear in Jackson County Circuit Court for trial. By the time police found her at the drug dealer's house in west Medford, DeShane was a week pregnant with his child and near a mental break-down, spurred by the dealer's suggestions that he could kill her. To DeShane, her jail cell seemed like a refuge. "After I went to jail, I felt nothing but relief," she said. The pregnancy, DeShane said, erased any doubts that she could stay off meth. Admitting to police that she had been using drugs before the fatal crash forced DeShane to forfeit custody of a son from an earlier relationship. She vowed to do whatever it took to keep her new baby. "I'm never going back to my old life, she said. When her child's father unexpectedly bailed DeShane out of jail before space opened up at a Medford inpatient treatment facility, she pleaded to get in sooner. Many more months of treatment followed DeShane's residential stint. "She has just consistently followed through," said Siri Alrick, director of clinical services at Addictions Recovery Center. More than a year after killing Tabor and Vittaco, DeShane faced the men's families in Circuit Court, tearfully apologizing for the crash. Although prosecutors didn't allege DeShane suffered impairment from drug use, speeding led to the charge of criminally negligent homicide, Beth Heckert, Jackson County's chief deputy district attorney, told the court. DeShane pleaded guilty, accepting her sentence of another four months in jail. Her baby, Jaedyn, was born a few weeks after her release. He spent about a month in foster care but now lives with DeShane in a Medford Oxford House with other recovering addicts who aim to support each other's sobriety. Although she is barred from serving alcohol to the public, DeShane landed a part-time waitress job after three years out of the work force. She still has two years under the jurisdiction of a probation officer and more than $70,000 in restitution to pay back. Her driver's license is revoked for seven more years. But this month, DeShane can celebrate being drug-free for a year and a half. "She certainly has her stuff she's going to have to deal with," Alrick said. "But she's back in society." "I'm living a normal life again," DeShane said. Darlene Vittaco's life, however, can't return to normal. The crash that claimed her husband left her with screws in her hip, a plate in her leg and $42,000 in medical bills. Unable to work, she lives in Rogue River on disability payments. But she has no more harsh words for DeShane. "I'm glad she got her life together, and I hope it keeps up," Vittaco said. Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail [email protected] . Would you like to respond to this story? If so Click Here to visit our forums. Advertisement Copyright © 1997-2007 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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