— A crash report from the Georgia State Patrol is under review as District Attorney Bert Poston considers whether to press charges in a wreck that killed a contract newspaper carrier for The Daily Citizen.

The early March incident spawned a civil lawsuit in Whitfield Superior Court against the city of Varnell for $750,000. The lawsuit alleges, among other things, that former police officer James Smith was speeding while not on an emergency call when his patrol car collided with 70-year-old carrier Willard Leon Thurman’s Dodge Neon, killing the Cohutta resident at the scene on Cleveland Highway near Orchard Drive.

Smith, who was friends with Thurman, was initially placed on administrative leave but resigned while the investigation was ongoing.

Varnell Police Chief Lyle Grant said that while the main investigation was turned over to the state patrol, an internal investigation found Smith violated several departmental policies including speeding while he wasn’t on a call. Smith was also using the patrol car to run a personal errand, Grant said, and he had a civilian in the car with him who was not authorized to be there because non-officers can only do ride-alongs three times.

“He’s already turned in his resignation, so I can’t go out there and do anything,” Grant said. “I can’t fire him.”

Grant said he did not know how fast Smith was traveling at the time of impact because he hadn’t seen the state patrol’s report, but he could tell from visual cues at the scene that he was exceeding 55 mph. The civil suit alleges Smith was traveling more than 90 mph when his patrol car hit Thurman’s vehicle. A phone number for Smith could not be found.

Poston said he received the state patrol’s Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team (SCRT) report on Tuesday but because of having to be in court hadn’t had a chance to review it and decide whether to bring charges against Smith. A state patrol officer would not release the report to The Daily Citizen, saying it would not be available until after the case is adjudicated.

Dalton attorney Robert Smalley, who is representing Thurman’s widow Virginia and daughter Melissa Mercer in the civil suit, is out of the office for the week. Rome-based attorney Andy Davis, who represents the city of Varnell, said the case is still in court.

“At this moment, I’m not at liberty to make any kind of press release or any kind of statement,” Davis said.



‘Always a hard worker’

Virginia Thurman said dealing with the loss of her husband, who was 70 at the time of the wreck, continues to be difficult. She still works, and she recalls the conversations she and Leon Thurman used to have about the possibility of him retiring so they could spend more time together. With his early morning work schedule and her also working, they usually had only a few hours a day together, she said.

Sometimes, she joined him on his newspaper routes to extend that time. He liked for things to be done a certain way though, and took pride in doing things right, she said. For decades, he had worked on and eventually managed a nearby dairy farm. The work was typically seven days a week, she said, and the farm was home to more than 200 cows. When the owner died, the farm was sold and the land converted to a subdivision.

Leon Thurman continued to have hobbies — gardening, watching sports, playing golf when his rotator cuff wasn’t bothering him, and spending time with his grandchildren.

He came to work as a carrier within a year or two after that, Virginia Thurman said. The newspaper job, which she estimates her husband began in the late 1990s, was a drastic change. Instead of being tied to the farm, he was on the road every day. He loved telling people stories about his interactions with those he encountered on the job — store clerks, all kinds of workers making their rounds, even police officers.

“I know (that) the police officers down in Varnell, he was friends with all of them,” Virginia Thurman said. “Sometimes they would flag him down to chat.”

In 1997, he was named “Carrier of the Year” by the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association.

Virginia Thurman said she had tried to talk to her husband about retirement in recent years. He would agree to quit his job, then forget a few days later that that had ever been his intention.

“Leon, he was always a hard worker,” she said. “He really took pride in what he did.”

This coming Tuesday would have been the Thurman’s 37th wedding anniversary.