Fourteen- year-old fatal hit and run case in Alma, Ont. solved

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A 14-year-case has been solved in the fatal hit and run of an 18-year-old male in Alma, Ont., after a 2022 tip that received $50,000.

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The OPP says Lucas Shortreed, of Fergus, Ont., was walking home from a party on Oct. 10, 2008, between 10:30-11:30 p.m. on Wellington Road 17 when he was struck and killed by a vehicle.

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The driver fled, but vehicle debris was found at the scene and the search began for a white 1995 Dodge Neon.

After more than 100 tips and several hundred vehicles examined, a June 2022 tip led the OPP to the Mapleton Township property home of David and Anastasia Halliburton, where they located a white semi-trailer hiding a small, four door white Neon.

The vehicle was taken and the Halliburtons charged.

“We were all pretty happy we finally found the car,” Det. Constable Dave Telfer said in a media release.

Judie Moore, Lucas’ mother, was given the information she had been waiting 14 years to hear.

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“At first, I was shocked,” Moore told the OPP in a media release. “It didn’t feel real. I had convinced myself they would never be found, and I just tried to move on. For 14 years, they lived in this community and lied and went on normally. This story is so much harder to live with.”

The OPP says David Halliburton later confessed he was driving the car that hit and killed Shortreed while on his way home from a friend’s house and acknowledged he had been drinking.

Subsequently, David and Anastasia Halliburton purchased an identical white Neon and replaced the driver’s door and dashboard with the VIN and licence plates with those from the damaged Neon, the latter which was doused in bleach and hid for 14 years.

The OPP says the Halliburtons also lied to officers after being questioned by them twice in 2008 and in 2009 and even let their new white Neon be used for a 2013 Crime Stoppers re-enactment of the crime.

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In September 2023, David Halliburton pleaded guilty to fail to remain at the scene of an accident causing bodily harm or death and obstruction of justice, and got a two-and-a-half year sentence and a three-year driving prohibition.

Anastasia Halliburton pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and careless storage of a firearm and got six months house arrest, 12 months probation and 200 hours of community service.

“I feel a sense of resolution,” Moore told the OPP in a media release. “Lucas was a wonderful kid and it’s so sad not to know what he would have become, but he should never have been there in the middle of the road that night. It’s important for me that other kids know they need a plan for a safe ride home.”

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