Woman cleared DNA leads to roommate’s arrest as

BARTOW — For Christina Westdorp, the eightmonth nightmare is finally over.

She always knew she wasn’t driving that night. She knew someone else was behind the wheel of her Mitsubishi Galant on March 16 when it crashed into Roy Wayne Stidham’s car along U.S. 98 at West Socrum Loop Road in Lakeland, sending Stidham’s car into a roll that would end his life.

Westdorp, 36, knew she wasn’t the one who had fled the scene after the crash, even as three witnesses picked her photo from lineups, identifying her as the fleeing driver.

But it wasn’t until now, after she spent four months in the Polk County Jail and eight months facing a possible 30-year prison sentence, that DNA evidence has exonerated Westdorp.

The same DNA has confirmed that her roommate, Shaina Kristine Simonecht, 35, was driving Westdorp’s 2004 Mitsubishi that night. Simonecht is being held in the Polk County Jail on $16,000 bail on allegations of leaving the scene of a crash involving a fatality and driving without a license, according to court records.

“I’m just glad it’s over and I’m glad she’s been arrested,” said Westdorp, who’s living in Michigan now with her fiancé. “I have a job and I’m happy. Things are good.”

She’d lived most of her life in Lakeland, but felt compelled to leave after her release from jail in July.

“I felt like I was made out to be a cold-hearted person,” she said. “I would never have left a person behind like that. Never.”

Westdorp said she felt like people she’d known all her life were looking down on her.

“I couldn’t walk with my head held high because I felt like everybody was looking badly at me,” she said. “I had to get out of Polk County.”

The crash According to Sheriff’s Office reports, Stidham, driving a 1995 Toyota Camry, turned from West Socrum Loop Road into the path of the Mitsubishi, which was northbound on U.S. 98 and unable to avoid the collision.

Stidham, 42, of Lakeland, died at the scene.

Westdorp said she told Polk County Sheriff ’s deputies when they came to her door the night of the crash that she had not been driving the car that night. She said she had been at home at 6:25 p.m., when the crash occurred, but she had allowed Simonecht to use her car.

While Westdorp sat in the Polk County Jail, deputies continued their efforts to track down Simonecht, according to arrest reports.

“All of these efforts had negative results due to Simonecht actively avoiding contact with law enforcement, and even missing court dates to deal with separate matters,” the affidavit states.

On June 20, Simonecht contacted deputies to say she would meet with them. In a taped statement, she said her sister had taken her to Zephyrhills to meet with a friend the night the crash took place, which deputies determined wasn’t true, the report states. Her sister, Brittany King, told deputies Simonecht had asked her to lie about her whereabouts that evening, but she refused.

King said she wouldn’t lie for her because she had four children of her own and had received emergency custody of Simonecht’s newborn baby, and she had to be able to provide for all of them, according to Simonecht’s arrest affidavit.

When confronted again by deputies, Simonecht repeatedly insisted she had no involvement in the fatality, Sheriff ’s Office reports state. But she did consent to provide deputies with samples of her DNA.

Westdorp is cleared Three weeks later, on July 11, prosecutors filed documents in Westdorp’s criminal case regarding lab reports and transcripts of Simonecht’s taped statements to deputies, according to court records. Two days after that, Westdorp was released from the Polk County Jail without having to post bail, jail records show.

Chief Assistant State Attorney Jacob Orr said Westdorp was released based on preliminary DNA results, but charges against her remained pending until further testing was completed.

DNA evidence retrieved from the driver’s airbag of the Mitsubishi matched the DNA Simonecht had voluntarily provided to deputies, according to reports. Simonecht’s DNA also matched DNA found on the collar, left sleeve and cuffs of a blood-stained white hoodie that a Sheriff’s Office K-9 had tracked from the crash scene.

When Simonecht was arrested Nov. 15 in Lakeland, she had six pending suspensions on her driver’s license for unpaid traffic fines, along with two convictions for driving while her license was suspended or revoked, deputies stated in her arrest affidavit.

She has an arraignment scheduled Dec. 18 in Bartow.