Man acquitted in wreck that killed 5

SPOKANE — A Spokane County jury on Friday acquitted a Deer Park man of vehicular homicide in a November 2005 head-on crash that killed five children from a Chewelah family.

The jury found 58-year-old Clifford L. Helm not guilty of five counts of first-degree vehicular homicide in the collision on U.S. Highway 395 north of Spokane that killed the children between the ages of 2 and 12.

Helm also was acquitted of one count of vehicular assault.

Helm testified he didn't remember the collision that also severely injured him, but that he may have had a coughing fit that caused him to pass out. Prosecutors contended Helm was using a cellular phone when he drove 244 feet in the wrong direction before the crash.

Washington State Patrol investigators concluded Helm drove through a grassy median, then in the wrong direction before smashing head-on into the truck carrying Jeffrey Schrock and the children.

Killed in the crash were the Schrock children: Carmen, 12; Jana, 10; Carinna, 8; Jerryll, 5; and Craig, 2.

The investigation was complicated by the Schrock family's reluctance to pursue prosecution, based on their religious beliefs.

Carolyn Schrock, Jeffrey Schrock's wife, the children's mother and a member of a tiny Mennonite community, publicly forgave Helm while he and her husband were recovering in a Spokane hospital.

Members of the sect attended the trial and were in the courtroom when the verdicts were announced Friday.

State Patrol investigators testified they found no indication Helm was drunk or on drugs or prescription medications at the time of the accident. The State Patrol subpoenaed cellphone records that showed Helm had briefly used his cellphone just before the crash.

Jeffrey Schrock was called to testify against Helm, whom his family had befriended after the crash, and told jurors he assumed the truck he saw in the median just before the crash was a state highway vehicle. He said he then saw the truck climb onto the highway and head directly at him.

Schrock, who was confined to a wheelchair for two months after the Nov. 1, 2005, collision, suffered internal bleeding, a head wound and broken bones, including a pelvis shattered in five places.