SANTA ANA : Silverado Man Pleads Not Guilty to Murder

A 26-year-old Silverado Canyon man who authorities say ran his pickup truck into three people, killing a close neighborhood friend and injuring two others, pleaded not guilty Friday to murder and other felony charges.

Shane Kenneth Young was indicted in February for second-degree murder and driving under the influence of alcohol and a drug. Police allege that Young’s pickup fatally struck pedestrian Jasmin Marie Cook as Young and a second driver raced down the narrow and winding Silverado Canyon Road on the evening of Oct. 16. Two men riding their bicycles on the shoulder beside the 20-year-old woman also were struck and injured.

The crash stunned the 900-member community, where Young had a reputation for fast driving and where he and Cook were such close friends that her family pleaded he not be charged.

The crash also lead to the demise of a little-known Department of Motor Vehicles study that had allowed Young to keep driving even though he had enough speeding tickets to have lost his license months earlier. Young was unknowingly part of a control group in the study, which dealt with punishment of errant drivers, and thus his license was not suspended last year despite his five traffic tickets in 1993.

Young made a brief appearance Friday during an arraignment hearing in Orange County Superior Court.