Driver charged with murder as mourners prepare to bury 4-year-old

ST. LOUIS COUNTY  •  As mourners prepared for the funeral of a 4-year-old Pagedale boy on Friday morning, prosecutors filed charges of second-degree murder and assault against the driver accused of leaving the scene of the Oct. 5 crash that killed him.

Ricky R. Weeden was charged on Monday with leaving the scene of a crash that killed Traye-shon Williams, 4, and injured his brother Jay'Shard Conner, 10. The new felony charges, filed Friday morning, are based on the death and injury resulting from Weeden's commission of a felony: driving with a revoked license.

Traye-shon and Jay'Shard were crossing the 7300 block of St. Charles Rock Road about 7:30 p.m. Oct. 5 when a GMC Sierra pickup driven by Weeden hit them and kept going, the Missouri Highway Patrol says. Traye-shon died at the scene. Jay'Shard was released Tuesday from St. Louis Children's Hospital. 

Mourners gathered at the St. Joseph Missionary Baptist Church on Friday morning at a visitation before the boy's funeral. Word trickled in about the charges being upped to murder.

Montriea Mays, 35, of Florissant, said she was happy to hear about the murder charge. "He deserves it," she said of Weeden. "He's no different than somebody pulling a trigger."

A limousine pulled up, and Jayshard got out wearing a leg cast and walking with the help of a silver walker. Inside the church, more than 100 mourners gathered.  Traye-shon was in a gray steel casket. He wore a pinstriped gray suit. Sitting on the edge of the casket was a Cardinals baseball cap and a photo of Traye-shon and his brother in T-ball uniforms. Blue and white flowers were all around.

The boy's T-ball coach, Laura Wohlschlaeger, 42, of St. Louis, attended the service. She carried a photo of the boys next to her heart as she walked into the church. Above Traye-shon's picture, she had added the words, "Heavens own MVP."

"He tried to give it his all," she said of Traye-shon.

The boys' grandfather, Charles Williams, 55, was pleased the charges were upgraded.

"Something like that needs to be enforced to the fullest extent of the law," he said. "I've experienced death before, but never like this with my grandson. He was the apple of my eye."

State Rep. Clem Smith attended the funeral and called Weeden fleeing the scene "a cowardly move. He will pay for his action.

Back in Clayton, Weeden was being held today at St. Louis County Jail on a $250,000 cash bond.

His license was revoked in April 1993 when he refused to take a breath test during a traffic stop, according to drivers license records, and he never got it back. Weeden has been convicted for driving while intoxicated at least six more times since then.

Weeden, 54, of the 4900 block of San Francisco Avenue, was also involved in a 1983 crash in St. Louis that killed two people, although the full extent of Weeden's criminal history is not clear.

In the September 1983 fatal crash, Weeden broadsided another car on Goodfellow Boulevard near Interstate 70, killing two people and injuring two more. Court records say St. Louis police sought charges of manslaughter, assault and careless and imprudent driving against Weeden. However, Weeden was charged only with careless and imprudent driving and was freed on $50 bail.

Two of Weeden's convictions since he lost his license in 1993 have been felonies labeling him a "persistent offender."

Missouri law defines persistent offenders as those with at least two previous DWI convictions or who have been involved in an alcohol-related crash that injured or killed someone.

Weeden also has multiple violations for speeding, running stop signs and driving without a license and related bench warrants in St. Louis dating back more than a decade, records show.

Weeden's longest prison sentence in the last 16 years has not exceeded two years and 10 months. Records before 1996 were not available Tuesday.

Weeden was sentenced in 2005 to four years of probation after St. Louis County police caught him driving under the influence at Halls Ferry Road and Hecht Drive two years earlier. The state revoked Weeden's probation in June 2007 and ordered him to serve four years in prison, but he didn't serve all four years. He was stopped again by Wellston police in April 2010 .

Although the case was charged as felony -- which could have carried a long prison term -- it was later amended to a misdemeanor. Weeden spent 90 days in the county jail and was subsequently sentenced to time served.

St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch said Friday in a news conference that prosecutors in the 2010 case agreed to a plea bargain because the investigation, he said, lacked evidence to get a felony conviction. McCulloch blamed Wellston police, saying there were problems with the case in our ability to prove intoxication in the case.

"There were issues with the field sobriety tests," McCulloch said. "Some of the investigation wasn't the best investigation. In all honesty, the officer was not, at the time, the most cooperative. He failed to appear for a couple of depositions. And there was no evidence of blood alcohol level."

The best option, McCulloch said was to agree to a misdemeanor DWI conviction instead of risk losing the entire case.

"All things considered, you know, we did what we could in that situation, and what we thought was appropriate," he said.

G.T. Walker, the Wellston police chief, said he reviewed the case and stood by his officer's work.

"I don't see any serious problems with the report," Walker said. "It seems like he had enough to make his case."

Walker said the officer is no longer with the department. This summer, one of Wellston's sergeants was certified in DWI investigation and is training other officers on the force.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story includes spellings of Traye-shon's and Jay'Shard's names as provided by the family and funeral home. An earlier version listed the spelling provided by police and court records.