A West Virginia man was sentenced to 18 months in prison in Howard County Circuit Court Thursday for his role in a high-speed collision on Frederick Road in Woodbine last year that killed a Mount Airy man.

Joel Nathaniel Wareham, 23, of Martinsburg, W.Va., entered an Alford plea to negligent manslaughter in February, according to court records, which means  he did not contest the evidence against him but did not admit his guilt.

Wareham entered the plea because he does not remember the events that led to the Aug. 14, 2008 collision, his attorney told Judge Richard Bernhardt Thursday.

Wareham was driving a silver BMW M6 between 85 and 90 miles per hour on Frederick Road in Woodbine at about 7:30 p.m. when he crossed a double yellow line and hit a Ford Explorer head-on, killing the driver, Milton Stanley Bowens, 64, of Mount Airy, according to prosecutors.

Neither Wareham nor his passenger, Joshua Booth, 20, of Laytonsville, were wearing seat belts, and both were thrown from the BMW, police said. The impact of the collision separated the engine from the car and left the engine sitting in the middle of Frederick Road, according to police. Wareham and Booth were taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center where they were treated and released the following day, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Before sentencing, Wareham asked Bernhardt to consider the welfare of his 19-month-year old son.

“I want to beg the court’s leniency for the sake of my son, not myself,” Wareham said.

Wareham’s attorney, Donald Wright, noted that Wareham had no criminal record, had been injured while serving in the Army in Afghanistan and had struggled with alcoholism. Wright asked for a sentence of probation with credit for time already served.

Bowens’ family members, meanwhile, described him as a pillar of his community who was still recovering from the recent death of his wife from cancer when he himself was killed.

“We hadn’t even begun to heal,” said Jermaine Myers, of Frederick, who identified himself as Bowens' son. “Milton Bowens was a ... caregiver and a role model in a community that has few of both.”

Michael Myers, also of Frederick, Bowens’ brother-in-law, said that he felt that Bowens was taken away too soon.
“I feel like that day Milton left us wasn’t supposed to be,” he said.

In handing down his sentence, Bernhardt said that he took into account Wareham’s service to his country and that his wife had stood by him through his travail.

But he also noted a computer montage of photographs of Bowens supplied by his family, noting that Bowens seemed to smile easily.

“An easy smile reflects a kind and just soul, and now his grandchildren won’t know that,” Bernhardt said

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user comments (1)

user walkingtall99 says...

18 months... that's absurd and pathetic. This guy gets hammered and gets behind the wheel, drives 90 miles and hour (passing people on the shoulder according to the local witnesses out here) and kills an innocent driver. He gets a limited sentence because of his service to the country? I don't understand that... I respect the heck out of the men and women who have served our country but how does that relate to a reduced sentence when an individual has acted so callously. What about the lives he has impacted here in our community? The victims family? The value of a human life? The citizens of Howard County, and more specifically the victims family, were not served fairly by this judgement.

Posted 2:32 AM, 07.18.09

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