PARIS – The manslaughter case against a New Hampshire logging truck driver indicted for killing a Bethel woman in a Route 26 wreck last year begins Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. in Oxford County Superior Court.

Lee Hillsgrove of Alton, N.H., is accused of killing 54-year-old Rebecca Shaw of Bethel on March 10, 2003, when the logging truck he was driving toppled onto her car as she tried to avoid the crash.

Waterville lawyer Thomas J. Nale is defending Hillsgrove, while Oxford County Assistant District Attorney Joseph M. O’Connor is to prosecute the case before Justice Ellen Gorman.

O’Connor said Monday that Hillsgrove, if convicted, faces a maximum prison sentence of up to 40 years and a $10,000 fine on the Class A crime.

When the wreck occurred, Hillsgrove was driving a fully-loaded logging truck north on Route 26 behind his brother Wayne Hillsgrove, also of Alton, N.H.

According to Paris police, Wayne Hillsgrove came upon a 1994 Ford Ranger driven by Willie Gaudreau, 38, of North Waterford, that was stopped in the left lane waiting to turn into KBS Building Systems on Route 26.

Wayne Hillsgrove veered his logging truck to the right to avoid Gaudreau’s pickup, but his brother’s truck struck the Ranger and continued into the southbound lane, police said.

Shaw, who was traveling south in a 1998 Volvo, braked and swerved into the breakdown lane to avoid the logging truck, but she had nowhere to go.

The log truck and the Volvo collided in the breakdown lane and the momentum carried both vehicles onto a snowbank where the rig’s logs shifted and came down on the Volvo, police said.

Shaw died at the scene from extensive injuries, leaving behind adopted twin children, Jon and Jeni, and her husband, Lennie, of 28 years.

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