Sad story about lethal accident on Taconic Parkway

[buddhabelly]

I have been puzzling over this story; it just doesn't add up. Her husband swears she didn't have a drinking problem. Do you think she drank a whole bottle of vodka (10 drinks in her system) and smoked marijuana 15 minutes before the accident, or is there another plausible explanation? Her husband had packed up the car with her that morning and didn't see anything amiss. So strange, so sad....

 

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Victims-Family-Outraged-by-Taconic-Moms-Conduct--52525957.html

 

If you go down below that article to the left there is another article from the husband's point of view. Apparently she did drink, but he didn't know it. Or says he didn't. If it weren't for the nieces in the car and her two children, I would think that she was somehow set up. You know, somehow poison her and put an empty vodka bottle in her car.

 

What has been going through your mind? Outrage? Despair? If her husband is telling the truth, she downed all 10 drinks after she drove away from the campground. I think that even the worst alcoholic would wait until she had delivered the kids safely before drinking so heavily. So did she just lose track of how many "sips" she'd had?

 

I can't stop thinking about this......

 

Julie

Edited August 7, 2009 by buddhabelly

[EKS]

It's possible that they got the samples mixed up at the lab.

 

As someone who used to work in a regulated lab, I know that this happens from time to time.

[gingersmom]

I was taking a course in college and in the course of my "research" decided to check out an AA meeting. Being young and naive I did not realize they would not welcome me with my notebook to take notes.

 

Long story short, I was shocked by the room full of soccer moms and wall street dads.

 

When I heard about this story it was the first thing I thought of.

 

I do not doubt that she had a drinking problem. Did her husband know? I guess we'll never know. I can't believe that in hindsight he does not put 2+2 together.

 

Very sad.

[fshinkevich]

I think that denial can be very, very strong when it involves someone you love, so that is one possibility.

 

Maybe she never had a problem previously but something went drastically wrong in her life and she was on a suicide mission.

 

Maybe the family is lying.

 

I don't know, time will probably give some details. My heart goes out to all the families - it's very sad.

[Moxie]

My ex-BIL holds down a $300,000/year job and is often described as "the greatest guy". He also has a $1000/week cocaine habit. This could be a mistake or she could have been very good at hiding things.

[LivingUnderGrace]

Sad ... it does bother me too, and I think of those children often.

[lgm]

There's a lot that doesn't add up in the story that's been publicized.

Rt. 17 for example is usually wall-to-wall traffic from lower Orange County to the metro area at that time on summer Sundays, so sustained weaving would be difficult for an impaired person.

I"ve read two different versions of the placement of the alcohol..one said in the vehicle, one said on the ground below the wreckage..

 

It'll all come out later. Prayers for the son who survived.

[JudyJudyJudy]

It's possible that they got the samples mixed up at the lab.

 

As someone who used to work in a regulated lab, I know that this happens from time to time.

This is what I suspect happened. It's heartbreaking.

[Samiam]

It kind of doesn't make sense to me either. I heard the news say at one point in the trip she called BIL, and said she was feeling "weird" (that wasn't the word they used, but I can't remember it now, maybe it was "woozy", or "disoriented" which doesn't mean drunk). So that would leave one to believe something medical was going on with her. But then why didn't she pull over at that point? Someone who was drunk probably wouldn't have the sense to pull over, but then would she have the sense to even make the call and admit to being disoriented?

 

But then, when the news showed a computer animated re-enactment, it appears she drove several feet in the wrong-way highway, with alot of traffic, and quite a bit of weaving before the actual crash. Why wouldn't you pull over immediately once you realized what was going on? Someone who was drunk wouldn't have the sense to pull over, maybe? But if she was out of it for a medical reason, maybe she was incapable of pulling over.

 

The news said a broken vodka bottle was found at the crash site. But they were coming back from vacation, with other adults. Maybe it was from the vacation, and just packed in the car. Just saying, that's not what I do on a vacation, but I know lots of people who like to have alcholic drinks with friends on vacations.

 

It just doesn't make sense to me, with all of the children in the car, she would drink THAT much and smoke marijuana. That just does not make any sense. I just can not wrap my mind around that being a possibility.

 

It's a sad horrifying story, to lose all of the children, and to add to it, having to figure out this mess. Heartbreaking.

[ConnieB]

But if she was smoking pot in the car with the kids, why don't they have any toxicity in their systems? Second hand smoke is supposedly as dangerous as being the smoker. If they have none then that would mean she was not in the vehicle while smoking, so she stopped somewhere to light up?

 

 

I've been around quite a few people with drinking problems. While a lot of them are capable of hiding it from employers and casual friends (mostly by chosing when they drink and making excuses about the hangover pain), but it is not easy to keep a drinking problem from someone you live with 24/7. Perhaps how MUCH you drink, but not the fact that you drink.

 

Whatever the outcome it's not going to change things for the children who died. I do hope, however, that they determine the true and complete facts so that the surviving son will not have to grow up always wondering.

 

Another thing I find odd....why wouldn't the family want a second autopsy if they felt so strongly that the results of the first was completely wrong? I mean heavens, if I felt that the police/labs had bungled it that badly, I'd sell my soul to afford another autopsy so that the truth could be known. It's got to be torture to even wonder if all this time husband hadn't seen the signs of drinking/drugs. And even if husband knew and is now trying to deny it (perhaps for liability reasons), you'd think that the parents of the other children would want to know why their children died?

[LizzyBee]

Another thing I find odd....why wouldn't the family want a second autopsy if they felt so strongly that the results of the first was completely wrong? I mean heavens, if I felt that the police/labs had bungled it that badly, I'd sell my soul to afford another autopsy so that the truth could be known. It's got to be torture to even wonder if all this time husband hadn't seen the signs of drinking/drugs. And even if husband knew and is now trying to deny it (perhaps for liability reasons), you'd think that the parents of the other children would want to know why their children died?

 

I read that they are considering exhuming her body to have another autopsy.

[Country Mouse]

Regarding the lab results, would they be able to get it so mixed up that her blood results and her stomach contents were both switched? I read she had undigested alcohol in her stomach.

Sorry if these details are too gross.

[EKS]

Regarding the lab results, would they be able to get it so mixed up that her blood results and her stomach contents were both switched? I read she had undigested alcohol in her stomach.

Sorry if these details are too gross.

 

I didn't work in a forensics lab, but if the samples came in in the same container (like batched together in a ziploc bag for example) or if they used a batch of labels (like a sheet of barcoded stickers) that they then stuck on all of the samples (and the whole sheet was for someone else), those are ways that could happen.

 

I always believe that if the results of testing, be it laboratory or educational or whatever, don't match up with what is expected, it is best to take another look.

[Renthead Mommy]

I went to high school with Jackie, the mom of the three girls. She was very sweet back then and her girls all looked just like her. This has been THE talk among facebook and other things. Everybody knew her and loved her. The whole thing is so sad. It was a lot easier when we all thought she had a stroke or something. The lab results are just salt in a wound type of thing. It's hard to imagine the whole thing being worse that it already is, but if she was drinking, that does seem to ratch it all up a notch.

 

I can't even imagine what Jackie and her husband are going through.

[Aileen E.]

I too have been following this story and thinking about it a lot. You're right, some things don't add up.

 

There's a slight possibility that the blood samples were mixed up in the lab, but wouldn't the M.E. have also looked for other possible physical causes of her behavior rather than relying solely on the toxicology reports that are not immediately available anyway? I know that the husband said she had some medical conditions, but I haven't heard anything about the autopsy showing any kind of illness or condition that might have been a contributing factor to the accident, (such as bleeding in the brain, abnormal glucose levels, etc.). Also, what about the alcohol in her stomach contents? Did the lab mix up her blood/tissue samples and the stomach contents? I don't know a lot about forensic science, but it seems to me like a lot of people would have to be very incompetent in order to 1) mix up the blood samples 2)mix up the stomach contents and 3) miss any evidence of a medical condition that might have caused the accident!

 

One thing that strikes me as odd is that phone call to her brother. She obviously knew that something was wrong, and had enough time and presence of mind to call someone on the phone. If she knew she was feeling ill, and she had small children in the car, why not pull over and call an ambulance or the police, or just stay put until a relative could come and get her... unless she had something to hide? Now, I can't rightfully step into someone else's shoes – maybe she felt better and thought she could make it home, and then suddenly got worse while she was driving. I think I personally wouldn't chance it, specially with children in the car, but who knows how other people think.

 

As far as the husband is concerned, denial is not uncommon in the families of people with substance abuse problems. At this point, for him to admit that he even suspected that she might have had a substance abuse problem, or that she had been drinking and doing drugs that day, and he did nothing about it for whatever reason, would mean taking on at least partial responsibility for the tragedy.

 

There's another even more sinister possibility. If she had been drinking and smoking marijuana with her husband before she got in that car with the children, there might be legal implications for him, certainly wrongful death liability to the families of the other victims involved in the accident.

 

All this to say, I just don't know. The way I see it, either 1)The M.E. and the lab really messed up on the autopsy. 2) She was an alcoholic and drug user and no one knew, or 3) Her husband/family knew and are now trying to protect themselves by denying any knowledge.

 

In any case, I really feel for the child that survived the accident, as well as the families of the other victims who lost their lives.

[5KidzRUs]

I remember a family in our small town - the wife had a few drinks at a beach party and her and her husband argued. She drove home with her two little boys and flipped the car on the highway. The judge (after she was sentenced) asked her if she had anything to say and she said that no sentence he could give her is worse than the one she has given herself.

[Nestof3]

I've wondered about it as well, and I do think there could be a mix-up in the lab.

 

But, more often than not, family or friends of a person accused of committing a crime deny that the person was capable of doing it. Moms, for example, are quick to say that their sons would never do such and such.

 

I've seen a person be an alcoholic without the husband knowing.

 

Plus, the average person wouldn't know where to get marijuana, so if there were marijuana in her system, this most likely wasn't a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing -- trying it for the first time.

[unsinkable]

Random comments:

 

I thought the autopsy ruled out heart attack or stroke.

 

What happened at the McDonald's where they stopped? Was the husband there & did he tell her something that made her so depondent that she started drinking? (he wanted a divorce or was having an affair)

 

Even an experienced drinker takes a while to drink the equivalent of 10 shots. When/where/what time did she start?

 

I know there was a small amount of alcohol in her stomach but maybe she got the rest of her alcohol into her thru another means. Sorry if that is too gross but I heard a news story about it recently.