Enloe High mourns student killed in highway wreck

Carol Anne Stamper, 15, of Raleigh, was riding in an SUV that went out of control on U.S. 264 between New Hope and Hodge roads. Police said the vehicle hit a guardrail, went airborne, overturned and hit a metal pole in the highway median for an overhead road sign.

"Half the kids weren't even in class today because they were with grief counselors," Enloe High junior Kaitlyn McCollum said Thursday. "It's just a really sad, sad day."

"Several people who I know really well, knew (Stamper), and they say she was just a really sweet girl, really quiet and just nice to everybody, artistic," junior Ally Kristan said.

A crisis team from the Wake County Public School System was at Enloe High Thursday to help students and staff deal with Stamper's death.

"All of us here at Enloe – the faculty, the staff, the students – are saddened by the loss of an outstanding student who was part of our theater arts program," Assistant Principal Ashlie Thompson said.

The SUV's driver, Ashley Nicole Szymankiewicz, 17, of Raleigh, was treated at WakeMed and released.

Police have charged Szymankiewicz, an Enloe High senior, with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle and with a safe movement violation. Investigators said the SUV was going 75 mph in a 70-mph zone, but the highway was slick after a steady rain.

"I can't imagine (what she's feeling)," Tristan said of Szymankiewicz. "(I suppose it's) a whole lot of guilt, which would be awful because she wasn't trying hurt anybody."

"How hard is it lose a student but also have another student who survived having blame placed on them?" Thompson said. "I think we want to support both the students families and everyone who's affected by what has happened."

Relatives of both Stamper and Szymankiewicz declined to comment Thursday.

Szymankiewicz is expected to make her first court appearance Friday afternoon.

The wreck marked the second time this week that a Wake County high school student died in a vehicle crash and another student was charged in the death.

Millbrook High School student Elizabeth Molloy died early Saturday when the Jeep she was riding in slammed into a tree on Rainwater Road in north Raleigh. Fellow student Garrett Prince, 16, faces a variety of charges, including driving while impaired and felony death by motor vehicle.