P4 THE SPOKESMAN • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2021
Redmond man gets prison in fatal car wreck
BY GARRETT ANDREWS
The Bulletin
Over three police interviews,
Devin Lee Cooper blamed ev-
eryone but himself for causing
the 2019 wreck on U.S. High-
way 97 that claimed the life of
19-year-old Sara Ann Edwards
of Redmond.
He blamed the drivers he said
never yield to people from his
neighborhood.
He blamed the driver of the
concrete truck who struck Ed-
wards’ vehicle.
He even blamed Edwards
herself, telling police she was
“probably putting on makeup”
at the time.
But on Wednesday in De-
schutes County Circuit Court,
Cooper, 43, struck a different
tone at his sentencing hearing,
tearfully asking Edwards’ family
for forgiveness.
“I’m sorry for the loss of your
daughter. I wish I could give you
answers. I wish I could give you
your daughter back, and that
will never be able to happen.
I know how much that must
hurt,” he said.
Cooper, who had no prior
criminal record, pleaded guilty
last month to one count of crim-
inally negligent homicide, for
which he will serve 18 months
with the Department of Cor-
rections, and his driver’s license
will be revoked for life. Cooper
relocated since the crash from
Redmond to Island City in East-
ern Oregon.
“There are no words that will
adequately express the depth of
pain from the loss of sweet Sara,”
said Edwards’ mother, Shauna
Silveira. “Our family is forever
shattered. The brokenness will
be with us the rest of our lives.”
It was early on the morning
of March 21, 2019. The
sun was not yet up and
it was cold and High-
way 97 was slightly wet,
though it was not rain-
ing, according to De-
schutes County Dep-
uty District Attorney
Cooper
Andrew Steiner, who
represented the state in
the case.
The three drivers involved in
the crash were each heading to
work. One was Edwards, driving
from her home in Redmond to
her job as a fashion merchan-
diser at the Bend J.C. Penney, a
position she was “fiercely” proud
of, according to her obituary.
Driving a Mack concrete
truck in the opposite direction
was Michael Cucera, 36. The
other driver, Cooper, resided
just south of Redmond in the
Desert Terrace Mobile Estates
on the highway’s west side.
Prosecutors said Cooper
pulled partially into the south-
bound slow lane, causing Ed-
wards to swerve to avoid him.
Crash reconstruction analy-
sis shows Edwards swerved left
to avoid Cooper, then overcor-
rected, lost control and went
into a fishtail. Her vehicle veered
left, crossing all lanes of traffic.
She was hit head-on by
Cucera’s truck and died in-
stantly.
“Her car was mangled be-
yond recognition,” Steiner said.
“It was draped hundreds of feet.”
A witness driving behind
Edwards reported to
police she was driving
close to the 65-mph
speed limit at the time.
The same witness saw
Cooper pull over far-
ther down the highway,
then drive off.
Police searched for
weeks for the other
driver. One week after the crash,
officers interviewed residents of
Desert Terrace Mobile Estates,
including Cooper, who lied
about knowing nothing about
the wreck, Steiner said. Without
being asked, Cooper reportedly
said, “You know, the real prob-
lem here is that people on this
highway don’t yield to us when
we come out of this neighbor-
hood.”
Police were eventually di-
rected to an anonymous com-
ment on the website of a local
television station . “I know who
did it,” a woman wrote.
Police identified the com-
menter, and it was revealed she
was a friend of Cooper’s wife.
Cooper and his wife were in-
terviewed by police separately.
“He again emphasized that
the problem was people weren’t
yielding to people from his
neighborhood who pulled out,”
Steiner said. “His story was just
demonstrably false.”
Five months later, a grand
jury charged Cooper with sec-
ond-degree manslaughter.
Cucera suffered a concussion
in the wreck that kept him out
of work for a year. The father
of three wrote in a victim im-
pact statement that he’s haunted
by nightmares of the crash and
months of counseling have only
scratched the surface.
“I see headlights and hear
screeching. I do what I can to
maintain control of the vehicle
after the windshield explodes in
my face on impact. I’m trapped
in my vehicle and and I crawl
out and look for the other
driver,” Cucera wrote. “That’s
usually the point that I wake up.”
Wednesday’s hearing was
heavily emotional despite the
participants appearing by video
from separate locations due to
COVID-19 protocols.
Edwards’ parents and two
older brothers described the
horror they’ve lived with for the
past two years.
Her brother Kyle LaRue asked
Cooper to live the rest of his life
“for others.”
“I’d be lying if I said I’ve
learned to forgive you. I haven’t
even tried that hard,” he said.
“I’ll be spending the rest of my
life trying to not let this rage and
grief and despair destroy me.”
e e
Reporter: 541-383-0325,
gandrews@bendbulletin.com
Panthers thump Lava Bears in football matchup
Bulletin staff report
It was a dominant perfor-
mance in all phases in Red-
mond’s 35-0 win over Bend
High in the most recent rendi-
tion of Central Oregon’s oldest
football rivalry Saturday after-
noon.
“We felt like we had a good
plan going into it, our kids exe-
cuted it out of this world,” said
Redmond coach Seth Wom-
ack. “I’m proud of them, they
did everything we asked of
them and then some.”
Although only going into the
half up 13-0, Womack had a
sense his team’s offense would
break through in the second
half. After all, the Panthers
racked up over 60 offensive
plays in the opening half.
“We wanted to go as fast as
we could, we just didn’t score,”
said the second-year Redmond
coach. “We did wear them
out a little bit and were able to
move the ball on them.”
The second half, after a Lava
Bear turnover, the Panthers
pulled away for good.
There was no stopping se-
nior Redmond running back
Austin Carter, who finished
with 173 yards rushing, 38 re-
ceiving yards and three touch-
downs. Senior Kole Davis and
sophomore Dylan Lee also
found the end zone for the
Panthers
“80% of yardage after con-
tact,” Womack said of Carter.
“He is a different kind of guy”
Although the offense scored
35 points, a simple field goal
would have been enough to
beat the Lava Bears, who were
kept off the scoreboard. Quar-
terback Steve Castillo finished
with 89 yards passing while
running back RJ Jones led the
team with 52 yards rushing.
Without running back Nate
Denney — last season’s Moun-
tain Valley Conference Offen-
sive Player of the Year and Yale
football commit from a year
who transferred to play his
senior season in Texas — the
Lava Bears struggled to find
a rhythm offensively. Gaining
only 157 yards of total offense.
But Redmond came up with
a solid plan to handle the tricky
Worship Directory
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Lava Bear offense that is tough
to plan for because of the use
of backfield motion.
“Coach (Gene) Dale put
together a really great defen-
sive game plan,” said Womack.
“Bend is no picnic to defend.”
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Submitted photo
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