Sept. 23--Seven hours after his windshield was shattered while driving home from a friend's apartment, where he had partied the night before, an Illinois State University student told police investigating a hit-and-run accident in which a pedestrian was severely injured that he had no idea what caused the damage.
"I thought someone threw something at it," Joshua Dunn told a detective. "I didn't know what happened, but obviously I knew the windshield was all messed up."
A McLean County judge watched the 30-minute recording of Dunn's Jan. 24 interview with police in the central Illinois city of Normal before finding him guilty Tuesday of misdemeanor driving under the influence of drugs and three petty traffic offenses in an accident that claimed the life of fellow ISU student Benjamin Allison, of Crystal Lake.
Dunn, 22, of Lombard, had marijuana in his system when he struck Allison with his car.
Dunn also faces a more serious felony offense of aggravated drugged driving involving a fatality. Judge J. Casey Costigan, who presided over the one-day trial, said he would wait until Oct. 1 to rule on the felony.
Dunn, who is free on bond, pleaded guilty earlier this summer to leaving the scene of an accident involving death. He faces up to 29 years in prison if convicted of both offenses. He also may be eligible for probation.
Dunn failed to stop after striking Allison with his car shortly before 9 a.m. Jan. 24 near the intersection of College and Fell avenues in Normal. There were no skid marks, and a police accident reconstruction expert estimated Dunn's speed to be 32 mph before he turned at the intersection and struck Allison, 20.
Prosecutors dropped charges related to alcohol before the trial. But Dunn tested positive for a small amount of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and he admitted to police that he had smoked it several days earlier.
At issue is an April 2011 decision by the Illinois Supreme Court that found drivers with even the slightest remnant of an illegal drug in their bodies are guilty of the felony offense if their bad driving caused an accident.
Proof they were impaired is not required, which means prosecutors do not have to show the drug contributed to a crash, only that it was present in the driver's system, according to the decision.
In Dunn's case, defense attorney Brendan Bukalski argued that the high court decision should not apply to a trace amount of marijuana. He said Dunn did not realize he struck a person until told by police.
Bukalski said Dunn was shocked and openly wept, which shows he did not know, a point prosecutors said they found hard to believe given Allison was 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighed 214 pounds.
Allison never regained consciousness and died days later. He was the only child of Tim and Melissa Allison. Surrounded by about two dozen relatives and their son's friends, Allison's parents wiped away tears as they watched police squad footage of him lying unconscious in the road.
Hours later, after details of the hit-and-run accident were publicized, a water department employee who had been working near Dunn's residence that morning in Normal alerted police that he had seen a motorist driving recklessly in a car with a shattered windshield.
Police located Dunn's tan 1998 Toyota Corolla that same day outside his home.
In his video-recorded interview, Dunn said he had consumed "five or six" beers the night before in a friend's apartment. Dunn said he stopped drinking about midnight and then slept over. He drove home about 8:30 a.m., and his parents arrived for a visit a short time later.
When asked why he didn't stop after his windshield shattered, Dunn said: "I guess because I didn't know what was going on. ... I definitely should have, but I guess at the time I was thinking about getting home," according to the police interview.
Dunn, a music theory major, left ISU after the accident. His parents, Robert and Laura Dunn, testified Tuesday that their son called them that morning to tell them about his windshield damage. He did not know what he had hit, his parents said, nor did he show signs of impairment.
Benjamin Allison was an avid hockey fan, majoring in broadcast communications. He worked as an assistant director at ISU's student-run WZND radio.
After his death, his parents donated his organs. A Facebook page called "Ben Allison's Legacy" has nearly 5,500 "likes," and his friends at WZND led an organ donor awareness campaign in his honor. More than a dozen, many of whom wore red radio T-shirts with his initials, attended Tuesday's daylong trial.
Taylor Bauer, 21, a senior from Aurora who is the station's music director, said they came to support Allison's parents and honor their friend.
"Even if you were having the worst day you ever had, he just made you feel like the big issues you were worried about at the moment didn't matter," he said. "You got the sense with Ben he really cared."
cmgutowski@tribpub.com
