Driver faces manslaughter, DUI charges

Tall Timbers man killed in July head-on crash

Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2009

St. Mary's grand jurors have charged a Hollywood man with manslaughter by vehicle, drunk driving and reckless driving from a head-on crash last July on Route 249 that killed a Tall Timbers man and seriously injured his wife.

George Michael Bowes Jr., 31, was released Friday on $100,000 bond after he was served earlier that day with an arrest warrant and the indictment from the two-vehicle collision that resulted in the death of 58-year-old Russell Edward Wenzel.

Wenzel was driving his wife home shortly after midnight on July 25 after their visit to a hospital, when police report the southbound sedan they were riding in was struck by a northbound pickup truck driven by Bowes after it crossed the highway's centerline.

Melissa Wenzel, also 58, was flown by a helicopter crew to a hospital in Prince George's County, where she underwent surgery for an elbow injury, a neighbor said after the accident. St. Mary's sheriff's deputies reported that Bowes was treated at St. Mary's Hospital and released.

A sample of Bowes' blood was obtained during the initial investigation, sheriff's deputies said, followed by a lengthy reconstruction and review of the accident, which was ultimately referred to county prosecutors. State's Attorney Richard D. Fritz, whose previous campaign treasurer is Bowes' mother, requested that the matter be handled by a court-appointed prosecutor, and it was assigned to Calvert County Senior Assistant State's Attorney Andrew Rappaport.

"They needed a special prosecutor," Rappaport said Monday. "I happen to handle those [types of] cases over here."

Bowes, formerly of Callaway, is represented in the case by trial lawyer David W. Densford.

"It's a tragedy all the way around. It's an extremely sad event," Densford said Monday at his office in Leonardtown. "We're going to do everything we can to make the weight on the [Wenzel] family as light as possible. We just want to resolve it in a way that everybody can go through it."

Motorist fined for negligent driving in fatal bike crash

In a separate matter, a judge fined a Hollywood woman $287 after finding her guilty this month of a charge of negligent driving issued by police investigating her collision with a bicyclist who died. Kathy May Lee, 20, received the traffic citation about a month after the car she was driving struck a bicycle that Curtis Andrew Leymeister, 47, also of Hollywood, was riding Oct. 5 on Clarke's Landing Road. Maryland State Police reported that their investigation determined that morning dew was still on the woman's car windshield, and that she was reaching for a cigarette lighter when the collision occurred.

jwharton@somdnews.com