ESPN takes look back at 2018 Goodall Park tragedy: Was it coincidence, or karma?

Carol Sharrow was found not guilty due to her mental state at the time of the Goodall Park tragedy (Courtesy photos)

SANFORD, Maine - In June 2018, millions around the world watched in horror a video of a car driving onto a Sanford youth baseball field scattering frightened children and umpires and ultimately fatally striking a man trying to protect those in attendance.

After the man was initially hailed as a hero, it was later learned that he had himself been involved in a deadly hit-and-run 50 years earlier, one that killed a four-year-old girl.

"The Hero of Goodall Park" scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. on ESPN takes a look back at the two tragedies and their sorrowful connection.

Douglas Parkhurst, Carolee Ashby

The project was two years in the making.

"This story is unlike anything E60 has ever done," said Andy Tennant, E60 executive producer. "It's a masterful piece of storytelling by Tom Junod - a story of heroism and guilt and the burden of memory and the need for justice and forgiveness and closure. And ultimately, it is a story of hope for one of the most basic human aspirations - peace."

It was back on June 1, 2018, that 68-year-old Douglas Parkhurst of Newfield was killed by the car driven by Carol Sharrow of Sanford, a woman in the grip of a psychotic episode. Parkhurst was at the game at historic Goodall Park in Sanford to watch his grandson play.

At first, Parkhurst was celebrated and mourned as the hero of Goodall Park, but then came a revelation from another place and another time. Fifty years earlier, in the town of Fulton, N.Y., a four-year-old girl named Carolee Ashby was hit and killed by a car as she crossed the street on Halloween night. The driver didn't stop and his identity remained hidden for 45 years. That driver was a young Douglas Parkhurst, who confessed in 2013 after the statute of limitations had expired.

The program includes:

• The first on-camera interview with Sharrow, the woman who drove the car onto the baseball field, now in a state mental health facility Augusta, Me.
• The first on-camera interviews with the son and grandson of Douglas Parkhurst.
• The first airing of police video showing Parkhurst's confession.
• On-camera interview with Darlene Ashby McCann, who was holding her little sister Carolee's hand when she was struck and killed in 1968.
• The first meeting between members of the Parkhurst and Ashby families as they seek closure.

A written piece by Junod will be on ESPN.com Tuesday morning to accompany the E60 story, and Junod will be a guest on the ESPN Daily Podcast with Mina Kimes to discuss the story that day as well. He also will appear on SportsCenter in the "OTL on SC" segment in the noon edition.