https://www.yourconroenews.com/neighborhood/moco/news/article/Military-vet-indicted-in-fatal-wreck-9253778.php
Military vet indicted in fatal wreck
Nancy Flake
Published 5:50 pm CDT, Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Montgomery County jurors indicted a veteran of the Iraq War Thursday for allegedly causing - and then fleeing from - a fatal wreck that killed a New Caney woman and critically injured her daughter in January.
Clayton Walker Sievertson, 36, of Shepherd, is charged with second-degree felony intoxication manslaughter, second-degree felony manslaughter, third-degree felony intoxication assault and two charges of third-degree felony failure to stop and render aid.
Sievertson was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a total of $500,000 in bonds - $100,000 per count - but had his bond reduced March 10 by 410th state District Court Judge K. Michael Mayes to a total of $100,000.
Under his bond conditions, Sievertson must have an in-horn interlock device with camera installed in his vehicle, and he must provide two breath specimens a day, according to court records.
He also must wear an ankle monitor.
He allegedly drove his 1999 Ford F-350 1-ton pickup north in the southbound lanes of FM 494 at Ferris Green in New Caney and struck a 2001 Toytota Celica driven by Alicia Sanchez, 43. The Celica was waiting at the light in the southbound lane of FM 494.
Sanchez was pronounced dead at the scene and her daughter, Daysy Silvestre, 20, was transported to St. Luke's The Woodlands Hospital in critical condition.
Sievertson allegedly fled the crash scene on foot, prompting the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office K-9 Unit and the Texas Department of Public Safety Air Support to search for him.
Officers apprehended Sievertson three miles north of the scene at the U.S. 59 frontage road and Cuttler Road. A witness who had driven up on the crash scene immediately after the accident told officers he had just left a bar where Sievertson allegedly also had been, and Sievertson allegedly dropped the witness at his vehicle at another bar, a DPS spokesman previously said.
Another DPS trooper spoke with Sievertson's mother in California via cell phone during Sievertson's pursuit, according to court documents. She allegedly told the trooper that Sievertson had told her he was involved in a crash, "was in the woods and needed assistance."
When he was apprehended, court documents state, Sievertson allegedly told a trooper that he was "involved in a fight, got beat up, walked to a gas station and started drinking beers."
Letters from Sievertson's family members and friends were admitted into evidence during his bond reduction hearing.
"My son served his country for nine years," a letter from his mother states. "He had to be gone 12 months and then eight months, consecutively, with only two to three months in between. He saw things over there that none of us citizens here in the USA want to even hear about."
A letter from Sievertson's foster father in Arizona states that "after Clayton came home from North Africa and Iraq he was a different person. He showed signs of PTSD ... he always said he was dealing with it.
"After his recent divorce I do believe the stress of (losing) his family combined with his war experience helped create the situation he's currently in."
PTSD is post-traumatic stress disorder.
Sievertson's attorney, Mike Aduddell, did not wish to comment on his client's case.