Ex-sheriff’s deputy hurt in Windham biker crash

WINDHAM – Deborah Hall, the former Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy acquitted of manslaughter in a 1998 traffic accident, was in critical condition Tuesday following a motorcycle crash.

Hall was riding a Honda motorcycle early Monday evening when she approached a line of vehicles stopped in a construction area, said Jeff Smith of the Windham Police Department.

Hall, 47, of Raymond crested a hill and struck the back of a Chevrolet Blazer. Her motorcycle glanced across the centerline of River Road and hit a GMC pickup truck, Smith said.

Hall was taken to Maine Medical Center where her condition was listed as critical late Tuesday morning. Authorities said neither speed nor alcohol was a factor in the crash, and no charges will be brought against Hall.

In February 2000, a jury acquitted Hall of manslaughter in a collision that killed two New Jersey teen-agers.

Killed in the July 1998 crash on U.S. 302 in Raymond were John Norton III, 18, of Flemington, N.J., and his brother, Matthew, 15.

Prosecutors argued that Hall, then a sheriff’s deputy in Cumberland County, was speeding past a line of cars with her lights and siren turned off when she broadsided the Nortons’ vehicle as it turned left.