Driver gets probation in 2013 death of landscape worker

A Wichita man who struck and killed a landscape worker with his car in 2013 was sentenced Thursday to three years of probation.

Taylor D. Schrader pleaded guilty in January to involuntary manslaughter while driving under the influence in the death of Terry A. Wright, 47. Wright was doing edging work along West Street near 29th Street South when Schrader’s Chevrolet Sonic veered off the road around 5 p.m. July 30, 2013. The car jumped a curb and slammed into a fire hydrant before striking Wright.

Defense attorney Robb Hunter said during Thursday’s hearing that Schrader, 21, was on his way to work at McDonald’s that day when he passed out behind the wheel. Schrader, he said, had taken an excessive amount of oxycodone earlier in the day, prescribed by a doctor to treat a medical condition that causes severe vomiting episodes.

He also had smoked marijuana the night before in an attempt to ease pain from the condition, Hunter said.

“He remembers picking up a cup. The next thing he remembers is someone knocking on a window,” Hunter said.

The car had been in cruise control before impact, according to a court document.

Wright, an employee of Suburban Landscape Management, was pronounced dead at the scene. Schrader was criminally charged more than a year later.

Schrader, his attorney said Thursday, “is deeply remorseful and sorry for what happened in this case,” and since has stopped driving and is undergoing long-term drug treatment.

“I would like to sincerely apologize to the family of Mr. Wright,” Schrader said in brief comments to the court. “And I’m here to take responsibility for what happened that tragic day.”

In ordering the probation, District Judge David Kaufman called the case “an unusual factual situation,” saying that although Schrader took more painkillers than prescribed, he did so to treat his medical condition, “not for the purpose of achieving an altered state of mind.”

Kaufman also pointed out that the marijuana, found in Schrader’s system during a drug screen, was used 19 or more hours before the fatal collision.

“I don’t see this as a case where Mr. Schrader smoked a bowl of marijuana before he got into his car so he could go work at McDonald’s flipping hamburgers stoned,” he said. “What you have here is a person lawfully using prescription medication.”

Schrader’s probation carries an underlying prison term of 45 months. He also will be subject to three years of supervision after his probation ends.

Although no one was in court to speak on Wright’s behalf during Schrader’s hearing, Sedgwick County Assistant District Attorney Aaron Breitenbach read from a letter he received from Wright’s widow.

In it, she expressed ongoing grief over her husband’s loss. She also spoke in support of Schrader.

“I’ve tried many times to write the court a letter about Terry’s life and death. But what always happens is I sit at the keyboard and cry,” she said in the letter. “He is the greatest thing that ever happened in my life, and I will never be the same without him. But life goes on, and so will I.

“… Please let this young man know this is his opportunity to have a clean, healthy life.”

This story was originally published April 2, 2015 at 7:21 PM with the headline "Driver gets probation in 2013 death of landscape worker."