17-Year-Old Killed in Crash was 'The Child Every Parent Wished They Had'

Courtney Lynn Little, the 17-year-old who died following a July 2 car crash on Moon Lake Road,  was “the child every parent wished they had,” her mother Christine Gilmore said Wednesday afternoon. 

Courtney’s father Tim Little, an accreditation deputy for the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office who works in the Land O’ Lakes jail, remembered he never had to discipline her.

Gilmore said Courtney, who would have been a senior at River Ridge High this coming school year, took the SATs more than once to improve her score. 

“We were blessed,” she said at a brief press conference with Tim Little, Tim’s wife Christine, and Courtney’s stepfather Mike Gilmore, a former Pasco detention deputy.

The conference was held at Dobies Funeral Home in New Port Richey.

Courtney Little was driving south on Moon Lake Road Tuesday with 16-year-old Kimberly Markou in the passenger seat of the car when she lost control of her vehicle “for unknown reasons,” according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The vehicle spun and went into a northbound lane where it was struck by a Dodge Dakota. There was also a third vehicle involved in the crash.

Courtney and Kimberlee died at the scene. 

Tim Little said his daughter had been driving on “a particularly notoriously dangerous stretch of Moon Lake Road.” He said he was told her car “hydroplaned” into oncoming traffic. He said it was an accident.

“I want to express my sympathy to her friend Kimberlee’s family,” he said.