10 years for driver in teen model’s death

Chula Vista — The father of a 19-year-old aspiring model who was killed in a traffic collision in Poway last year said he heard about the crash on the radio as he was getting ready to catch a bus to work.

Later that morning, he saw the collision site and felt pangs of sadness for the family that had suffered such loss — not knowing at the time that the family was his own. It wasn’t until he after he arrived at work, and answered a panicked phone call from his wife that he learned the dreadful news: His daughter, Evelyn Jean Courtney, was dead.

“I am here to stand up for her, to defend her,” Wade Courtney said in court Monday in a sentencing hearing for the driver in whose car his daughter died.

Robbie Dean Gillespie, 45, had pleaded guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and possession of methamphetamine. He received a term of 10 years in prison Monday. He’ll have to serve at least half that time before he becomes eligible for parole.

The collision occurred June 20, when Gillespie — who was driving a Honda Accord with Evelyn Courtney in the passenger seat — ran a red light on Midland Road at Poway Road about 4 a.m. A fire engine responding to a medical call was heading east on Poway. The fire engine hit the Honda, killing the young woman.

Gillespie had bailed out of jail hours before the incident and was under the influence of methamphetamine at the time of the crash. He was arrested in early August at his Rancho Bernardo home.

At Monday’s hearing, Wade Courtney described his daughter as a hard worker with a boisterous laugh who liked to decorate the family home for the holidays and buy gifts for her father, mother and younger brother. Because she wanted to become a model, the father said he learned photography so he could protect her while helping her achieve her dream.

“My muse was taken from me,” he said.

The family has filed a wrongful death claim against the city of Poway contending the firefighter driving the engine had not passed a required test and that the engine’s siren should have been activated.

Wade Courtney said he and the rest of his family went to bed the night before the crash thinking Evelyn was safe at home. Neither of the parents had met Gillespie before their daughter’s death.

Deputy District Attorney Dan Link disputed an earlier assertion in court that the young woman had viewed Gillespie as a “father figure.”

“We’ll never quite know the relationship he had with this young woman,” Link said.

Gillespie’s lawyer, Bonita Pineda Martinez, had said her client and the victim were friends. She asked the judge for leniency, arguing that Gillespie — who has bipolar disorder and other health issues — was a husband and father who could be rehabilitated.

But Judge Dwayne Moring chose instead to sentence the defendant to the maximum term, noting his criminal history, his drug arrest less than 48 hours before the crash, and the age and vulnerability of the victim.

Gillespie made a motion to withdraw his guilty plea last week, citing ineffective assistance from his previous attorney, but the judge denied the request.