Justice System Questioned in Girl’s Hit-Run Death

The impact hurled Lisa Doell out of her shoes and into a tree.

A 12-year-old girl who loved to dance, she was walking along the road on that autumn day when the car struck her from behind, almost squarely at the knees. At first she was knocked backward, her head denting the hood.

There were no skid marks--and no witnesses.

Nearby, passers-by found a license plate. And that led to the arrest of a 16-year-old boy who had told friends of rape fantasies and had written grisly poetry--who, in fact, told police he had killed Lisa Doell.

“It wasn’t an accident. I did it on purpose,” Andrew Whitaker said.

But a year after Lisa’s death, a jury rendered a surprising verdict: Whitaker was not guilty of murder, but of manslaughter.

There was another surprising twist: The prosecutor blamed the steadfastness of one juror for this failure to convict on the more serious charge. Twenty years earlier, that juror’s son had hit a child who ran in front of his car.

“I believe Andy Whitaker got away with murder,” said Lake Oswego police Cpl. Michael Hammons.

Hammons investigated the case that has so troubled this affluent suburb of Portland.

A memorial marks the scene of Lisa’s death--a picture of a girl with curly blond hair and a wide smile; a poem about why God would reclaim a child so early in life. Children still drop by to leave candy.

Those who knew her recall Lisa’s charisma, her enthusiasm and her knack for negotiating peace among her many friends. Her nickname was “Peacer.”

“She was a sparkle,” said Dottie Fields, Lisa’s dance instructor. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Lisa would have found a place for herself in the theater world. . . . She was unusually talented.”

On Oct. 20, 1992, the day before her death, Lisa was on her way to dance lessons when she saw someone staring at her from a car. As she later told her mother, the episode scared her enough to duck into a frozen yogurt shop. When she came out, the car was gone.

Hammons said Whitaker talked with a classmate, Matthew Dickman, that night.

“Andy talked about girls and how he had never kissed a girl,” Hammons said. “He also talked about impulses, and he said he saw a girl walking down the street and he had an impulse to stop and rape her.”

Was Whitaker the man who unnerved Lisa? It’s not known.

What is known is that shortly before 4 p.m. the next day, Lisa Doell died on North Shore Road. And about 4:15 p.m. that day, Dickman later testified, Whitaker drove to his house and said he just hit someone with his parents’ car.

“He said, ‘I went through with one of my impulses,’ ” Dickman testified.

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At LaSalle High School, said Principal Timothy Edwards, Whitaker was an “average to better” student who enjoyed poetry and literature.

“He was quite intelligent and his grades got better as he proceeded. He was quiet and quite reserved,” Edwards said.

But Whitaker’s tranquil appearance belied an emotionally volatile side.

Twice, LaSalle Vice Principal William George had called 911 when Whitaker appeared to be having panic attacks.

Hammons said writings found in his room revealed a disturbed, irrational personality, “a person not knowing which way to go, what to do--not knowing what was real and what wasn’t. The kid was messed up. No doubt about it.”

How he got that way is a matter of speculation. Hammons says Whitaker hates his mother and stepfather and had “a terrible family life.”

In a $10-million wrongful death lawsuit against the Whitakers and their son, Lisa’s mother charges that the Whitakers physically and mentally abused Andrew for 10 years when they knew or should have known that such abuse could result in violent behavior by him that could injure someone else.

Neither Andrew Whitaker nor his parents would comment.

Trial testimony portrays a very troubled youth.

At one point, English teacher Timothy Joy read one of Whitaker’s poems, “The People’s Possum.” In it, a baby possum is struck by an automobile and “squashed like a pumpkin on Hallow’s Eve.”

Joy said Whitaker gave him the poem less than an hour before Lisa Doell’s death.

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During jury selection, potential juror Betty Maxwell acknowledged that her son had been involved in an accident two decades before. But Deputy District Attorney Michael P. Regan allowed her on the panel; he was convinced that she could separate the two incidents.

The Andrew Whitaker who testified was not so confessional as the one police interviewed.

He testified that he was depressed and upset about personal problems as he drove home from high school the day of Lisa’s death.

“I remember seeing her, but I didn’t realize she was there,” he said. He said he did not speed up, swerve or put on his brakes. “I was scared.”

He said he told his schoolmates that he had given in to an impulse partly because “it seemed so unreal to me.”

And when he told police it wasn’t an accident, he was confused and merely trying to accept responsibility, Whitaker said.

“I was trying to tell him it was my fault,” he said. “My interpretation of an accident is where no one is at fault.”

The jury deliberated 16 hours over three days before convicting Whitaker on manslaughter charges. Two of the 12 jurors voted against a murder conviction, which must be unanimous; one of them was Maxwell, who later said she voted for acquittal because of her son’s experience and was sympathetic toward Whitaker.

“The trial bothered me bad enough. But it’s all the criticism I’ve been getting,” she said. “I still feel I did the right thing.”

She feels the evidence against Whitaker was flimsy, and said other jurors bullied her and the other woman who voted against a murder conviction.

Andrew Whitaker’s attorney, Gary Bertoni, did not grant a request to interview Whitaker at MacLaren School for Boys, a state reformatory school, where he is serving his three-year sentence.

The prosecutor, Regan, learned a sad lesson: “Now, knowing what I know, I probably won’t put anyone on (a jury) who has any kind of connection.”

Still, he does not think the system failed.

“I understand the strengths and weaknesses of the jury system,” he said. “We are witnessing one of the great weaknesses--that sometimes injustices occur. If I had to sit down and devise a better system, I could not do it.”

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The Doell family is not so accepting.

“I wake up every morning and go, ‘Is Lisa really gone? Did someone really murder her? Did we really go through a criminal case and her murderer is being set free?”’ said Lisa’s mother, Colleen Doell. “It’s just not real.”

Her ex-husband, Steve Doell, took his outrage over the verdict to the Oregon Legislature, which passed a bill making it harder for people who kill with automobiles to regain their driver’s licenses.

He still chokes up when talk turns to his daughter.

“It’s not been easy,” Doell said. “I’ve not only lost my daughter, I’ve lost my best friend too.”

Colleen Doell says she’s been so focused on the criminal aspect of her daughter’s death that she hasn’t had a chance to deal with the loss--and doesn’t know if she ever will.

“She didn’t walk into a room, she bounced into a room, she danced into a room,” Colleen Doell said. “It’s pretty quiet in our house now.”