Frederick Schools Mourn Brother, 16, and Sister, 13
By Candace Rondeaux and Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 8, 2006
It was going to be a big year for Dustin Muse. The Governor Thomas Johnson High School junior was about 18 months from graduation, but college football recruiters were already eyeing the 16-year-old starting quarterback. Lean and agile, the Frederick teenager had earned serious notoriety with his rifle-armed passes.
So when the team's season came to an end in the first round of the Maryland playoffs a few weeks ago, Dustin took it hard. After he got out of classes Wednesday, he stepped into the low afternoon light, strapped a weighted vest to his chest and began running. He could have taken some time to relax. But he wanted to get ready for next year, said coach Ben Wright.
But there would be no next year for Dustin. Those would be his last laps.
Yesterday, Loudoun County sheriff's investigators were still trying to determine the cause of a traffic accident in Leesburg on Wednesday evening that killed Dustin and his sister, Courtney, 13. The accident occurred about 6 p.m. where the Route 15/Route 7 bypass and business Route 15 split just outside Leesburg.
Next year was going to be a big year for Courtney, too. A country music lover who played piano and loved to dance, she would have started high school at Thomas Johnson, where she would have joined her brother and her mother, Pam Meehan, who has been a math teacher there for about a decade, said Marita Loose, a spokeswoman for the Frederick County school system.
"They were part of the T.J. family," Loose said. "We are grieving on multiple levels."
Dustin was driving his father's 2000 Jeep Wrangler south on Route 15, with his sister in the front seat, when the vehicle veered off the road and down a steep culvert before crashing into two trees, said sheriff's spokesman Kraig Troxell. Although both were wearing seat belts, Dustin was thrown from the soft-top Jeep. Both were pronounced dead at the scene, Troxell said.
About 20 minutes before the accident, Dustin had called his father, Donald Muse, 42, in Leesburg to let him know that he and Courtney, an eighth-grader at Monacacy Middle School in Frederick, were on their way -- and to ask for a favor, Donald Muse said yesterday. The two had just left Frederick, where they live with their mother during the week, and were planning to celebrate stepmother Kristi Muse's birthday in Leesburg on Wednesday night, said Muse, who shares custody with his ex-wife.
Always conscientious, Dustin wanted to make sure he didn't show up empty-handed, his father said.
"He said: 'Dad, I don't have enough money to buy flowers. Could you get some for Krisiti? I have a card and everything, but I wanted to get her flowers,' " Muse said.
Muse said he became worried Wednesday night when his children didn't show up as planned.
"I knew something was wrong because Dustin is never late," Muse said yesterday between sobs as he surveyed the spot where the Jeep hit the trees. "I looked at the clock. It was 6:37. We started looking for him."
Muse, a Chevy Chase bank manager, found himself looking on in horror as rescue workers tried to recover his children's bodies from the bottom of the culvert. Witnesses said Dustin, who got his driver's license in March, appeared to be driving at the posted 45-mph speed limit. Alcohol and speed do not appear to have been factors in the accident, Troxell said.
Wednesday's accident brought to 18 the number of traffic fatalities this year in Loudoun, Troxell said. Five of them happened on Route 15, a narrow two-lane road that winds through rolling hills southward from Frederick toward Prince William.
A straight-A student, Dustin had just been inducted into the National Honor Society, and he was a fairly cautious driver, his father said. "Like any other teen he would sometimes go a little fast, but he was a good driver," Muse said.
At 7:30 a.m. yesterday, shortly after homeroom, Thomas Johnson teachers broke the news to students. Football players and cheerleaders gathered in the media room. What started out as a small group soon ballooned to more than 200 students, said Loose, who attended. "It was very quiet," she said.
There was a similar stunned silence at Monacacy Middle School, Loose said. Principal Everett Warren remembered Courtney as a bright young student who loved animals and making home videos of her family and who "always had a friendly smile and a kind word for everyone."
A memorial for the two teenagers is expected to be held this weekend.
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
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