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Letter to the editor

Wrong-way driver took a shining life on I-275

They were opposites, with little in common.

By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN, Times Staff Writer
Published October 6, 2007

Jeanie Cornell holds a photo of her son, Steven, 22, as daughter Mary looks on. He was killed by a driver going the wrong way on Interstate 275 last month, police say. Mary was seriously injured, and the family faces huge medical bills.
	[Cherie Diez | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT Charles Hicks, 32, faces vehicular homicide in the crash.

ST. PETERSBURG -- Steven Cornell was Mr. Popularity. The former Seminole High basketball player had hundreds of friends and standing invitations to party most any night.

But at 22, Cornell was beginning to settle down. He was staying out of trouble, taking classes at St. Petersburg College and working as a waiter at trendy Ceviche downtown. His sister picked him up after he finished a shift Sept. 26, and they headed home on Interstate 275.

A hundred yards down the interstate, Charles Hicks sat behind the wheel of a Ford Escort, speeding away from police. He was 32, a felon who had beaten a murder charge. He had served prison time for driving the wrong way down the same interstate six years earlier.

Now, he was driving the wrong way again. And speeding directly at the Cornells.

Mary Cornell, 17, was steering up a sloping stretch of the interstate just after 2 a.m. A bright flash flooded her eyes.

"The last thing I remember seeing is the headlights," she said.

* * *

Steven Cornell was the big man on his high school campus. He cast a shadow that loomed over his little sister years after he graduated.

Girls adored him. He could always be counted on to amp up a get-together.

On family trips, he played practical jokes. Once he convinced his mom that he had hit a deer in Key West. On another trip, he helped save a man who had fallen overboard.

"Everyone loved him," said his mother, Jeanie Cornell, 51. "Every girl was in love with him."

Wayne Dusi, 52, a firefighter for the city of St. Petersburg and Jeanie Cornell's boyfriend, said he was so impressed the first time he met the young man that he told his mother: "I would be proud to call him my son-in-law."

Steven Cornell's penchant for partying landed him in trouble a few times. He was arrested on charges of marijuana possession and driving under the influence.

After his DUI arrest in February, he couldn't drive and relied on friends and family to pick him up and drop him off.

But he had begun to turn things around in recent months. He stayed out of trouble while going to school. To pay for school, he worked five nights a week at Ceviche. Blythe Livesey, the head host at the St. Petersburg restaurant, said Cornell impressed everyone even though he had been working there for only two months. He was being considered for a promotion, to head server.

"Steven just shined," Livesey said. "Right from the start he was incredibly good at what he did."

After finishing his shift in the early morning on Sept. 26, he called his little sister for a ride home.

* * *

While Cornell was making friends by the handful, Hicks mostly grew up alone. He had 10 brothers and sisters, but his father was never around. His mother died from bone cancer when he was about 2 years old.

He entered the foster care system before living with other relatives, according to a sister, Ella Smith, 50. He kept to himself. He didn't play with other kids and he didn't make it through high school.

Some friends later told police they had trouble understanding his speech. Smith said he was always sad and walked around as if there were "a weight on his shoulders."

"He had it pretty rough," Smith said. "Losing your mother, not having your mother's touch, your mother's smell. It affected him a great deal."

Before his 18th birthday, Hicks was building a lengthy criminal record. In 1992, at age 17, he began serving five years in prison after being arrested on burglary and vehicle theft charges, among others.

He was barely back on the streets before being sent back to prison in 1998 for a year after his arrest on grand theft and cocaine possession charges.

By 2001, he was wanted for murder.

Hicks was accused of shooting and killing a man who had picked up a 16-year-old girl after chatting with her online. The girl told police that Hicks, an acquaintance, had fired the fatal bullet at Edward Caldwell, 38.

Police closed in. Desperate to avoid capture, Hicks sped through parking lots and red lights, fleeing police cruisers. Two of them crashed trying to catch him.

Police abandoned the pursuit due to safety concerns after Hicks drove the wrong way on a stretch of I-275.

Police found him the next day at a girlfriend's residence and arrested him.

Ashley Malone, the 16-year-old girl who told police Hicks was the shooter, said he seemed calm and laid back after the shooting.

"I was kind of like screaming at him like and he was just like, 'So what?'" she said in a deposition.

Another girl, Courtney Webb, said in a deposition that Hicks boasted about the shooting, saying: "And he was like, 'I shot the white man. I shot the cracker.'"

A jury acquitted him of the murder charge.

On July 12, 2006, after serving three years in state custody on charges related to the pursuit, Hicks was back on the streets. He had spent nine of the past 13 years in prison.

* * *

On Sept. 23, police say Hicks drove a green Ford Escort straight at a marked police cruiser, forcing the officer to swerve out of the way. The officer had tried to pull him over for making an illegal U-turn, police say.

Then, early in the morning on Sept. 26, police say Hicks sped toward another marked cruiser. The officer avoided a crash. Minutes later, Hicks drove at yet another officer, just missing him, according to police.

Each time, police pursued the Escort but abandoned the chase because it was too dangerous. When an officer saw Hicks start driving the wrong way on I-275 S, he entered the northbound lanes, hoping to keep track of Hicks.

It was too late. Hicks drove on the interstate for nearly two miles before crashing into the Cornells just after 2 a.m.

Steven Cornell was killed. Mary Cornell, Hicks and Marcus Tolbert, 31, a passenger in Hicks' car, were seriously injured.

Mary Cornell doesn't remember much about the crash. She can still hear her brother moaning, still feel him shaking her to make sure she was all right.

The accident bruised her ribs and lungs. She still uses crutches and faces several months of physical therapy.

The Cornells have thousands of dollars in medical bills, a burden that is especially draining since they don't have health insurance. Jeanie Cornell says she can't afford it on her salary as a dental assistant.

She's still coping with the death of her son.

"I don't have my little boy anymore," she said. " I just don't understand how he (Hicks) could be out of jail."

She doesn't want other families to suffer because of him.

"I don't want him out of jail," she said. "Ever."

Hicks faces vehicular homicide and other charges, including aggravated assault.

Ella Smith, Hicks' sister, said she never imagined her brother could do such a thing. She said he was terrified of police, and she doesn't know why he may have driven at them.

"My heart goes out to her (Jeanie Cornell) and I pray for her and her family," she said. "I am so sorry."

Abhi Raghunatahn can be reached at araghunathan@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8472.

FAST FACTS: Donations
Donations to pay for the Cornell family's medical expenses can be made to the Mary Elizabeth and Steven Cornell Fund at any Bank of America branch or mailed to Bank of America, 985 Pasadena Ave. S, South Pasadena, FL 33707.

[Last modified October 6, 2007, 01:14:57]