A Vail man is charged with providing alcohol to a Schleswig soldier who walked into traffic and was hit and killed earlier this year in Crawford County. Twenty-one-year old Brandon Laubscher was formally charged with supplying beer to a person under the legal age resulting in death. Information filed in Crawford County District Court say Laubscher is accused of buying and providing beer to 19-year-old Justin Paul Byers of Schleswig during the afternoon and evening of June 20th.
Shortly before 10 p.m. that night, Byers walked out of a roadside ditch along Highway 30 west of Vail and into the path of a pickup truck driving by 42-year-old Mark Schurke of Vail. Byers was killed instantly. Laubscher is scheduled to be arraigned in Crawford County District Court on January 9th. Byers had returned to his home in Schleswig from college after learning that the National Guard unit he was serving in was being deployed to Iraq. A few days before the collision, Byers learned that his brother Casey Byers had been killed while serving in Iraq.