Aaron Alderman, BHS 1985

Aaron Alderman, BHS 1985

CRASH KILLS YOUTH ON EVE OF BIRTHDAY
Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1984
By Allan Jalon, Times Staff Writer

A Burbank High School senior was killed in an accident on a rain-slicked road late Friday night, less than an hour before he was to turn 18. Police said the victim, Aaron Alderman of Burbank, was a passenger in a pickup truck that crashed into a tree and overturned a few blocks from his home.The driver of the truck and another passenger, both classmates of Alderman, were brused but otherwise unhurt.

Police said the youths were traveling south on Glenoaks Boulevard just outside Burbank when their pickup hit the curb of a center divider and hit the tree at 11:20 p.m. They said the victim's parents arrived on the scene shortly after their son died and before an ambulance took the body away through the pouring rain.

"The man was in shock and looking at us and looking at the coroner and at the body," Sgt. Dennis Zine said of the father. "The woman was trying to comfort him. It was the first time in 16 1/2 years as a traffic officer, after hundreds of fatalities, where I' ve seen the parents at the site of the accident like that."

Zine said that there was no indication that the truck was speeding and that no charges have been filed against the driver.

"It was Aaron's 18th birthday today and they were just out," the victim's mother, Janice Alderman, said Saturday. "They were on their way home. They never stayed out late. They all knew we as parents were anxious about them being out."

She said her son's strongest interest was singing; he was a tenor in various groups in Burbank. She said he loved to draw, was good at math and had walked the streets of Burbank in November trying to get out the Republican vote. He was undecided whether to go to college or join the military, she said.

She and her husband, Darrold, remained at the scene until a deputy coroner removed the body.