Teenager in deadly crash testifies

When he spotted the sporty new Ford Mustang coasting along his Deerfield Beach neighborhood street, Wesley Brown’s eyes widened.

“It was like a dream car to me,” he told a Palm Beach County jury on Wednesday. Brown was 15 and didn’t have a learner’s permit, but he asked to slip behind the wheel of the silver convertible.

About two hours later, on the night of Nov. 1, 2015, the luxury ride ended in a tragic crash at a Boca Raton intersection.

Brown testified in his own defense, during his second trial on charges of vehicular homicide, fleeing, and driving without a license. Now 16, he’s being prosecuted as an adult for the death of Wendy Harris-Aceves, 46, a Boca Raton mother of two.

Brown’s first trial last month ended with a hung jury.

Taking the witness stand again Wednesday, he blamed his reckless driving on a death threat from his front-seat passenger, convicted felon Jacquan Strowbridge, 20.

“I’m thinking, he has a gun right now, so if I stop the car, or pull over or jump out, he’ll try to shoot me or something like that,” Brown said of Strowbridge’s orders to drive fast and get away from the police because the car was stolen and he was on probation.

“The car just took off,” Brown said. “I didn’t know it was going to take off that fast.”

He testified that he started to have difficulty breathing and took his hands off the steering wheel to look for an inhaler, prescribed to treat asthma. He said he then “blacked out” and doesn’t remember the crash.

Prosecutors Danielle Sherriff and Laura Laurie say Brown alone is responsible for pushing the pedal down on the Mustang, reaching up to 117 mph as Boca Raton police cars with lights and sirens trailed the car.

Brown was driving southbound on Northwest Second Avenue as HarrisAceves was driving eastbound on Palmetto Park Road, on her way to pick up her daughter from a school dance.

The Mustang ran a red light and slammed into the Honda Pilot at 95 mph at 11:22 p.m., according to investigators. Harris-Aceves was thrown from the vehicle and died instantly, according to Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Bell.

He told the jury Wednesday an autopsy found the impact of the crash fractured Harris-Aceves’ skull, tore her brain, fractured her neck, broke

her pelvis and more.

Brown, then in eighth grade, said he first found out about the loss of life when a police officer at the scene told him, “Good job, buddy, you killed someone.”

With the jury out of the room, Brown said he was in the hospital with a broken leg and broken wrist when he saw a TV news report about the deadly crash.

“I started crying,” he told Public Defender Carey Haughwout. “I was upset it happened. I said to myself, ‘I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to.’ I’m still sad to this day.”

Circuit Judge Charles Burton did not allow that testimony to be heard by the jurors.

Strowbridge, charged with a misdemeanor count of resisting an officer without violence in the case, is not being called as a witness.

The trial continues Thursday with the defense expected to call an expert witness, a doctor who will testify about Brown’s asthma diagnosis.

The judge told the jurors they should also expect to hear closing arguments from the attorneys and begin deliberations before the end of the day.