WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump met Tuesday with the parents of a British teenager who was killed in a car crash involving an American diplomat's wife who is a former Aiken resident.

The White House declined to say what message the president had delivered, but Charles and Tim Dunn said Wednesday they were treated poorly.

One of the couple's lawyers, Mark Stephens, said Wednesday that Trump and national security adviser Robert O'Brien wanted the pair to meet with the woman in front of the White House press corps.

He told The Associated Press that the couple had no idea the diplomat's wife, Anne Sacoolas, would be in the building when they were there Tuesday.

He said the couple wants to meet with Sacoolas but not in a surprise meeting staged for reporters.


Sacoolas, a South Aiken and the University of South Carolina graduate, left Britain shortly after, though police released a statement saying she had previously told them she had no plans to depart. Her current whereabouts are uncertain.

Dunn's parents have been pressing for Sacoolas to return to Britain and held a press conference in New York on Monday to press their case. Charlotte Charles, Dunn's mother, tearfully urged her to "do the right thing" and to "face us as a broken family," along with the U.K. legal system.

"She needs to set an example to her own children that you can't run away," Charles said.

Trump last week called the collision "a terrible accident" and said he planned to intervene by potentially arranging a meeting between the Dunns and Sacoolas.

Still, he seemed sympathetic to Sacoolas, saying that accidentally driving on the wrong side of the road in England, where drivers drive on the left instead of the right side of the street, is something that "can happen," and that he had once done so himself.

A statement previously released on Sacoolas' behalf said she intended to continue to cooperate with authorities.

"Anne is devastated by this tragic accident. No loss compares to the death of a child and Anne extends her deepest sympathy to Harry Dunn's family," it read.