Drunken driver pleads guilty to killing woman on Strip

Bill Gang

Thursday, Dec. 23, 1999 | 11:29 a.m.

An habitual drunken driver, who is serving a California prison sentence for a drug offense, has pleaded guilty to running down and killing a Michigan woman as she tried to walk across the Strip in 1997.

Shaen Gresham's rented Porsche, which had been traveling at more than 60 mph, slowed only briefly after the fatal collision before speeding off. He parked the car at a nightclub and then moved from the hotel where he was staying to another in an apparent attempt to avoid apprehension, said Deputy District Attorney Gary Booker.

But he had called the new hotel from his old hotel room and the record of that call let the Nevada Highway Patrol track him down and arrest him about five hours later.

The Porsche had been followed to the nightclub by a witness to the fatal accident, who was able to positively identify Gresham as the driver of the car that killed Vicki Andersen as she walked with a friend to see Paul Anka at the Aladdin hotel-casino on Oct. 9, 1997.

Gresham's guilty plea to a felony drunken driving charge -- his fourth DUI and second involving a collision -- will keep him in prison for no fewer than two more years and perhaps as long as 15, according to the plea bargain.

The maximum sentence under the law is 20 years, but if District Judge Michael Douglas gives Gresham more than 15 years at the sentencing set for Feb. 9, the defendant will be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea.

As part of Wednesday's plea bargain, charges of reckless driving, involuntary manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident are going to be dismissed.

Just two weeks before the Las Vegas incident, Gresham had been sentenced in California on his second DUI. About four months later, while free on $100,000 bail, he was arrested in California on yet another DUI.

Booker said Wednesday's plea bargain had been arranged months ago, but California prison officials kept transferring Gresham and it was a problem getting him to Nevada for the court hearing.

Weeks after the fatal accident on the Strip near Flamingo Road, Andersen's friend, Rebecca Dunlap, 63, remembered her best friend's last words: "Boy, that car's coming fast, Becc."

Andersen, 55, had last seen Anka, her favorite performer, when she was 16. She was in Las Vegas for his show and to relax before her husband, back home in Greenville, Mich., underwent heart surgery.

The two women got off a city bus near Bellagio Drive. With the nearest crosswalk 200 feet away, and seeing that traffic at a light up the street had stopped, they decided to take their chances in the middle of the block.

But the light turned green and Gresham's Porsche sped through the intersection, slamming into Andersen a moment later and flipping her body into the air and onto the pavement.