Man Must Visit Grave of Victim

Man Must Visit Grave of Victim

The Associated Press

STILLWATER (AP) - After he pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and drunken-driving charges, David Eugene Littlesun was ordered to visit the grave of his victim each year for eight years.

Payne County Associate District Judge Robert Murphy Jr. on Friday ordered Littlesun to go with Mitsuye Conover to her son's grave each year on the son's birthday. Conover had requested the visits as part of Littlesun's probation.

Her son, Sean Conover, was 19 and a freshman at Oklahoma State University on September 14, 1996, when he was killed along Oklahoma 51.

Sean Conover was a passenger in a Volkswagen Rabbit driven by another man on the night he was killed, according to police. The driver of the car had pulled over on the shoulder of the eastbound lane of the highway, north of Cushing, to check an oil pressure light. It was about 2:40 a.m.

Police said Littlesun's car rear-ended the Volkswagen, pushing it into the center of the highway. Both Conover and the Volkswagen's driver got out of the car and stood by the car.

Another vehicle then ran into the Volkswagen, which struck and killed Conover.

Police said that Littlesun had a blood alcohol level of 0.29, nearly three times the legal limit in Oklahoma, when he was arrested.

Littlesun, 31, of Bartlesville, admitted in court Friday that he was drunk at the time of the accident.

Mitsuye Conover said in court that she did not believe Littlesun understood the devastation her son's death had caused to her family.

"Our lives will never be the same," she said, adding that Sean was her only son. "I don't think I'll ever have true happiness again."

In addition to asking that the judge order the cemetery visits, Mitsuye Conover asked that he order Littlesun to contribute money each year to a scholarship fund established in her son's memory.

Murphy, who told the court he had lost a daughter 10 years ago to drowning, ordered Littlesun to make the cemetery visits, pay $50 per month for seven years to the scholarship fund and go to intensive outpatient treatment for alcoholism. He sentenced Littlesun to serve a year in the county jail, followed by seven years probation.

Littlesun was also sentenced Friday for four other offenses, dating back to 1995.