A 19-year-old man who served a year in jail for his reckless and impaired driving that resulted in the death of two local teens in 2017 was booked into the Grand County Jail on Oct. 30 to be investigated for a suspected probation violation.
Gage Colton Moore was ordered to serve one year in the San Juan County Jail after he pleaded guilty on Aug. 14, 2017, to two second-degree felony charges of automobile homicide, and two class A misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment.
An Adult Probation and Parole spokesperson in Moab confirmed that Moore is currently on probation, but referred details into the nature of the potential violation to the Utah Department of Corrections in Salt Lake City.
Kaitlin Felsted, Utah Department of Corrections spokesperson, confirmed on Nov. 7 that Moore was booked into the Grand County Jail for a 72-hour hold on a potential probation violation.
“He was investigated and then released and is continuing his supervision,” Felsted said.
Felsted could not provide further details on what the suspected probation violation may have been. Court records show no new charges have been filed in Moab against Moore for a probation violation.
She said Moore has a three-year probation term that began in 2017 and ends in August 2020.
Standard probationary terms include a curfew, abstaining from possessing alcohol or being in venues where primarily alcohol is served (such as bars), having no association with any people engaging in criminal activities, paying court fines and abiding all laws.
Moore faced a potential maximum penalty of 30 years in state prison for causing the deaths of Taylor Bryant and Connor Denney in a March 5, 2017, traffic accident on the La Sal Mountain Loop Road in northern San Juan County.
Survivors Tierney DeMille Dawson and Daniel McCrary were seriously injured in the crash, which occurred after an intoxicated Moore lost control of the 2003 Subaru Impreza he was driving.
A timeline of events leading up to the accident, released in 2017 by the San Juan County Attorney’s Office, said Moore, then 17, had consumed a “substantial amount” of alcohol to celebrate junior prom night on March 4, 2017. The timeline did not disclose where Moore had obtained the alcohol; San Juan County Attorney Kendall Laws had said multiple sources had provided the alcohol, but law enforcement officers had not been able to identify suppliers due to a lack of leads or help from the community.
However, documents filed in the Seventh District Court in 2018 show the victims or their families and representatives have filed a civil suit against Moore. The suit also names Moore’s father, Mark Moore, and Mark’s Moab-based business, as defendants, and provides alleged details into the night of the accident that were not included in the San Juan County Attorney Office’s timeline.
In the civil suit, the victims allege Moore was employed at his father’s business and, using his entrance key, entered the business on the night of the accident on March 4, 2017, where he located a bottle of bourbon that had been purchased by Mark and stored in the business. From there, the victims allege a group of about 10 friends or acquaintances of Moore’s entered the business at 10:30 p.m. and began to “pass around” the bottle of bourbon.
Moore’s blood alcohol content following the accident was well above the state limit — .124 percent, records said.
Although the victims allege that Mark gave the group permission to enter the business, and that he was one of the suppliers of alcohol, Mark denies in his answer to the suit that he gave permission or had any knowledge of the group locating and passing around the bottle of bourbon.
Despite denying the allegations, court documents show that Mark offered a combined settlement of $100,000 to all victims in the suit. The offer was not accepted, as records show depositions are taking place and the suit is headed for trial in 2019.
The amount of general damages the victims and their families would be paid is to be determined at trial, records said. The defendants’ state that the amount should not be more than what is permitted by state law, which is $2 million for all victims.
Jordan Bryant, the older brother of Taylor Bryant, said the initial offer of $100,000 may have come close to covering some of the medical and funeral expenses incurred to the victims, but said the survivors have ongoing, permanent medical needs that need to be compensated.
“My feeling toward the whole situation is, obviously nothing can bring Taylor or Connor back, nothing can undue the damage to Tierney or Daniel,” Bryant said. “So from a careful, objective perspective, my hopes are that Gage (Moore) is either really turning his life around and becoming a better person, or …. if he demonstrates an inability to improve himself and to learn from that, then … I feel like people should be aware of that. If they see him going down that road again, they should say something.”
Gage Moore served a year in jail for fatal prom-night accident in 2017; victim’s brother hopes Moore is ‘turning his life around’
“He was investigated and then released and is continuing his supervision.”
