I haven't posted in sometime and I was wondering weather to post this or not. I had photographed Brittany in October / 2008, I didn't really know her well, but you hate to hear news like this. Your heart goes out to the family.
Suspect in DUI hits, kills student
Police: ‘Low-speed’ chase ends in crash
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, December 27, 2008
When Brittany Elaine Weiss was a senior at Cherokee High School, she directed a play about the consequences of drunken driving. On Friday, the 19-year-old Gordon College student was killed by a man accused of drunken driving.
“We’re all heartbroken,” said Tori Wester, 18, who participated in the play that portrays young people at a party. At the end, the play reveals that two of the characters have actually died. “She liked the writer, and she thought it was powerful.”
Weiss had just left a Canton movie theater at about 12:15 a.m. Friday when her 2008 Toyota Scion was struck broadside by a 2003 Town & Country minivan. The driver of the minivan, Stephen Patrick Wauschek of Canton, is in Cherokee County Jail, where he faces charges of DUI and first-degree vehicular homicide, police said.
Canton police had tried to stop the suspect for possible DUI and an expired license tag, but Wauschek refused to stop. During a chase that police described as “low-speed,” the minivan ran a red light and struck Weiss’ Scion, police said.
He tried to run away on foot but was caught, authorities said, and had a suspended Michigan driver’s license.
Police said Wauschek had been arrested by Cherokee County Sheriff’s deputies in September on charges of DUI, striking a fixed object and attempting to elude.
A Cherokee County magistrate judge on Friday evening set Wauschek’s bond at $318,000, but, because he had violated probation from previous DUI charges, a hold was put on his bond, police spokesman Sgt. Jay Baker said. “He cannot bond out of jail unless the hold is removed [by his probation officer] at a later date,” Baker said.
Weiss, an only child, was pronounced dead at the scene. A passenger in the Scion, Kassandra Aileen Carman, 19, was injured and taken to WellStar Kennestone Hospital, where she was in critical but stable condition Friday.
A man answering the door at the Weiss home declined to talk about Brittany Weiss. Friends described a vivacious young woman who loved everything about the theater.
Ciara Auringer, 18, also had a part in the play. She said Weiss loved drama and often styled hair and make-up for high school plays.
“She was funny,” Auringer said. “She always had a job. She was pretty together.”
Weiss worked as a hostess at Provino’s Italian restaurant in Canton.
Will Banks, a friend from high school, said he saw Weiss entering the movie theater Thursday night to see the film “Valkyrie.” “I saw her go in and decided to just say hello when we got out,” Banks said in an e-mail.
“She was talking to Kayce [Kassandra Carman] as she was walking in. After the movie was over, it slipped my mind because I was in a hurry to get home. I wish I could have talked to her one last time to say goodbye.”
David Bachman, who knew Weiss since elementary school, said he hadn’t talked to her in a year but remembered her fondly.
“She was an angel,” he said. “Now that she’s gone, I think she still is an angel.”
