SALISBURY — A Wicomico County grand jury last week indicted an Eden man on vehicular homicide charges for a pedestrian crash in October that claimed the life of a Salisbury man.
Brent Morgan Taylor, 44, of Eden, was indicted by a Wicomico grand jury last week on multiple counts including homicide by motor vehicle while impaired by controlled dangerous substances after striking Rob Schulthesis, a former SU Alumni Association president, with his truck on Oct. 16. Taylor was ordered to be held without bond after a bail review hearing last Friday.
Schultheis, 37, was well known in the resort area and across the Lower Shore for his tireless dedication to Salisbury University and as a district sales manager for Sysco Eastern Maryland, where he worked for 14 years. According to police reports, Schultheis, an avid fitness enthusiast who often competed in road races and bicycling events around the Lower Shore, was running on Meadow Bridge Rd. in Fruitland around 7:30 p.m. on October 16, 2015, when he was struck by a pick-up truck driven by Taylor.
Wicomico County Sheriff’s deputies responded and found Fruitland EMTs attending to Shultheis, who later died from injuries sustained in the collision. According to charging documents, after viewing Taylor to be jittery with his pupils pin point in both light and dark, Taylor was subjected to a battery of field sobriety tests, which he did not complete to the officers’ satisfaction.
According to police documents, the officers asked Taylor if he took any medications and Taylor advised he took methadone and that he was on methadone due to a heroin addiction. Taylor told police he had last taken methadone around 6:30 a.m. that morning. The only other medication Taylor admitted taking was an antibiotic.
Based on the evidence, Taylor was detained on suspicion of driving while impaired. A blood-alcohol test returned a negative result, but a Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office drug recognition expert completed a search and seizure warrant for Taylor’s blood and he was transported to PRMC for a blood draw.
According to the Wicomico County State’s Attorney’s Office, the results of the blood work on Taylor revealed sufficient evidence to charge him with homicide by motor vehicle while impaired by CDS in the pedestrian collision.