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Published Wednesday, February 11, 2009 in Local

Pleas entered in vehicular homicide, road rage cases

By Elizabeth Richardson

The Times-Herald

Three defendants pleaded guilty this week in Coweta Superior Court in three separate criminal incidents that occurred on Coweta County roadways.

* Mark Shane Atha pleaded guilty this week as a first offender to first degree homicide by vehicle after a jury was selected in his trial on Monday, according to Sr. Asst. District Attorney Ray Mayer.

Atha lost control of his 2008 Nissan Titan in the early morning hours of April 14 on Line Creek Road east of Haralson. During the wreck both he and his passenger, Scotty Roberson, were ejected. Roberson was fatally injured in the crash. Roberson was a veteran of the Iraqi war and had served with the 48th Brigade in 2005, according to Mayer.

Atha initially denied operating the vehicle and refused a sobriety test.

Atha was sentenced to 15 years to serve three in prison.

* In a separate case, 18-year-old Kenneth Russell McElroy pleaded guilty to first degree homicide by vehicle, serious injury by vehicle, reckless driving and violation of limited driving permit. McElroy was charged in the wreck that claimed the life of 14-year-old Ray Hammond. McElroy was admittedly "playing around driving and speeding" when the fatal accident occurred the evening of June 13, 2008, on Dr. Bruce Jackson Road in western Coweta, according to court officials.

McElroy was sentenced to five years probation as a first offender with $2,000 in fines and court costs, according to Mayer.

"The differences between [Atha] and McElroy were the ages of the defendants, and more particularly that alcohol was involved [in Atha's incident]," said Mayer.

* In the third unrelated case, John C. Hoffman, 44, pleaded "guilty but mentally ill" to one count of aggravated assault for an April 30, 2007, road rage incident. Hoffman, who's been in jail for more than a year, was sentenced to 20 years probation, banishment from the five-county Coweta Judicial Circuit and other special conditions relative to his mental health, according to Mayer.

In April 2007, Hoffman repeatedly crashed his vehicle into the rear of a van driven by Mitch Coggin of the Coweta Fire Department. The attack was unprovoked, according to Mayer, and continued until Coggin reached his residence and called police. Hoffman was arrested and granted bond. He was taken into police custody a second time after trying to steal a grill, according to Mayer.