The wife of a man killed in a 2018 vehicle crash hugged the woman who was accused of his death following the not-guilty verdict issued by the jury.

Teresa S. Lim, 25, of Greenwood Village, Colo., was found not guilty of felony homicide by vehicle and misdemeanor counts of involuntary manslaughter following the proceedings Wednesday, Jan. 18.

On June 29, 2018, David Vandoren, 50, of Lancaster Township, died as a result of blunt force trauma when his motorcycle was hit by a vehicle driven by Lim on Route 19, Lancaster Township.

The trial began Tuesday, Jan. 17, and resumed Wednesday before Judge Timothy McCune in county Common Pleas Court.

The jury heard testimony from a distraught Lim, who took the stand in tears.

Lim said that she is a first-generation American; her parents are from South Korea. She grew up in a suburb of Denver, and testified to having limited driving experience.

Now age 25, Lim said she was 20 years old when the crash occurred. According to Michael Zunder, defense attorney, this means she had her license for three years and 11 months before the accident.

“We weren’t allowed to take the car unless there was a very good reason,” Lim said.

The experiences she had on the road were confined to multi-lane interstate highways, Lim said, and she’d rarely driven on country roads. She also didn’t have access to a car for most of her time in college.

During the summer between her junior and senior year of college, Lim said she accepted an internship which required her to move to Pittsburgh.

The internship was with Southwestern Advantage, which sold educational books, SAT and ACT prep packages, and other materials door-to-door. Lim testified that she drove from Colorado to Tennessee for training, then to her host family’s home in Pennsylvania.

She said the job was often taxing.

“It was really hard. Some neighborhoods I started in knew the company I worked for and would turn me away automatically,” she said. “We’d work 14, 15 hour days, six days a week.”

The motivational notes found posted on Lim’s dashboard, which multiple witnesses referenced as distracting in the Tuesday session, were part of her internship, she said.

“They recommended us to put (them) on our steering wheels so we could refocus and calm ourselves down and keep going if we had a difficult day,” she said. “I thought it was odd.”

On June 29, 2018, Lim said she started her day around 6 a.m., leaving her home around 7:30 a.m. to travel to the first neighborhood north of Lancaster Township.

Her last appointment of that day took place around 10 p.m., she said.

“It was my biggest sale. … The family had four different kids in different grades. It took time to show that amount of material to four kids at once,” she said.

Upon leaving that appointment, she was on Route 19 for 10 minutes before she encountered the Keefer’s vehicle traveling 40 mph.

“I looked at my speedometer,” she said. “He braked a few times. I didn’t understand why because I didn’t see anything ahead of him. I noticed there was a dotted line next to me, and I didn’t see any headlights, so I checked lanes and started to pass.”

Zunder asked if Lim had ever driven that road before, or had driven on a two-lane road before, to which Lim answered she had not.

She then stated that she accelerated to pass the Keefer’s car, but wasn’t pulling ahead of him.

“When he started drifting back, I made a split-second decision to pull away and try to pass. Then I heard the crash,” she said.

Lim said her window had shattered, so she pulled over and started running toward the scene to see what she had hit.

“I kept running until I saw the bike, I tried to locate the rider. ... I couldn’t see because it was dark. ... I ran back to my car and grabbed my phone. ... I dialed 911 because I didn’t know where the body was. ... When the operator asked me where I was, I didn’t know, so I tried to describe it,” she said.

Lim became increasingly upset as she recounted the incident, until Laura Pitchford, assistant district attorney, called a recess.

Upon resuming, Lim told Zunder she didn’t recall seeing the motorcycle’s headlight as she attempted to pass the Keefer’s vehicle, or the lines on the road changing from dashed to solid.

She also said she was unaware of the slight upward grade on that stretch of Route 19.

During cross-examination, Pitchford asked why Lim decided to pass the Keefer’s vehicle with no prior experience on types of roads like Route 19.

“I didn’t know what was happening on (their) end, and I had to make a split (second) decision,” she said.

During closing arguments, Zunder reiterated that Lim’s case was a tragic accident with an inexperienced driver, and that the commonwealth had not met its burden.

“(Lim) said, ‘It’s my fault’ because she’s the one who caused Mr. Vandoren’s death. No one’s disputing that,” he said. “There’s a court for fatal crashes; it’s called wrongful death, and that’s a civil suit. Is there anything that led you to believe she did this intentionally?”

Zunder further pleaded with the jury to rule in Lim’s favor.

“There’s a whole courtroom of people here for Mr. Vandoren, that doesn’t mean that Miss Lim is guilty,” he said.

Pitchford described Vandoren as an upstanding citizen, a family man, and an Army veteran, and that not enough had been said about him in the trial.

“You sat through about one and a half days of trial for something that happened in about four seconds on the road,” she said. “We’re not saying (Lim) intended to hit Mr. Vandoren; it’s whether or not her actions were reckless.”

She asked the jury for a guilty verdict.

The jury deliberated for nearly two hours before reaching the verdict of not guilty.

McCune found Lim guilty of summary offenses, including careless driving resulting in unintentional death.

Vandoren’s friends and family submitted impact statements, which were read by his widow, Heather, following the verdict.

“I would like the court to know about who Dave was. Many people always said he never met a stranger, he lived a life full of color,” she said. “He lived such a fulfilled life, and he was always looking for ways to make himself better. He had so many plans for community service, and he’ll never get to fulfill that.”

Many friends wrote that Vandoren should still be alive, and was killed due to negligence.

Lim stood and faced the courtroom following the readings, and apologized to the family for Vandoren’s death.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” she said through tears. “I’m just really, really sorry I caused this to happen. I’m so heartbroken and I didn’t even know him.”

Heather stood from her seat and approached Lim, and the two embraced.

“You shouldn’t be comforting me,” Lim said.

“Thank you for apologizing,” Heather said.

Lim promised to support causes beloved by Vandoren, to which Heather replied it would be a great way to honor her late husband.

Lim was sentenced by McCune to pay various court fines with the summary offenses.

“There’s nothing we could do to punish you as much as you’re punishing yourself,” he said to Lim. “I hope this doesn’t control the rest of your life. If you need help, get help.”