VICTIMS DESCRIBE HORRORS OF DWI

On the morning of Nov. 5, 1988, as Cathy Wilson was rushing out the door on her way to school she told her mother she had something special to tell her when she got home.

Loretta Wilson never found out what the news was. A short time later Cathy was dead; killed by a drunken driver.

No matter how many times they tell their stories, it never gets any easier for the survivors of drunken driving victims. However, for some if in reliving their pain they can convince others to stay sober on the road, it is worth it.

Once a month the Mothers Against Drunk Driving Victims Panel convenes at the Cape Girardeau Public Library to provide people convicted of driving while intoxicated firsthand accounts of how drunken drivers shatter lives.

During the latest meeting Wednesday night, 21 offenders listened to Loretta Wilson and Toni McLain, tell their stories. Sometimes up to 50 offenders are in attendance.

"Usually there are two or three who you can tell it made a difference to," McLain said. "For some they forget as soon as they hit the door; they're only here because they have to be. But I can't recall any night when we haven't affected at least a couple."

The panel is an outgrowth of the MADD Community Action team started three years ago as a support group for victims by the city's police department's Community Traffic and Victims Assistance programs. The panel came into existence two years ago.

Usually three victims out of a regular rotation of five speak. Some speakers have lost relatives; others have survived accidents themselves.

The intent isn't to yell and scream and accuse offenders, who are ordered by the court to attend as part of their sentence. Rather they simply show the dread consequences that can occur. Hopefully, offenders will heed the message.

The panelists agree talking about their ordeals serves as therapy, but even after several years it isn't always easy.

"Sometimes you can go through and not cry; sometimes you have to break down," McLain said.

McLain and Wilson, who is always accompanied by her husband, Charles, have only missed one meeting each during the past two years.

While listening to their stories it is difficult not to feel every ounce of pain these people have endured.

Russell McLain died Sept. 15, 1990, at the age of 20, just blocks from his parents' home in Cape Girardeau. Russell had just helped a friend get his motorcycle started and was taking a ride with him. He didn't know the friend had been drinking all day.

The friend, who was wearing a helmet, slammed the bike into a parked car and sent Russell, who wasn't wearing a helmet, flying 139 feet. Russell was taken to Southeast Missouri Hospital, where he was born, and was pronounced brain dead. The friend survived.

"When kids are little and they hurt their elbow or hurt their knee you can clean it up and put a Band-Aid on it," McLain said. "This time was different and I knew there wasn't anything I could do."

In the case of Cathy Wilson, she was hit by a drunken driver on Route D heading from her home in Oak Ridge. The driver had been carousing all night and slammed his pickup into Cathy Wilson's car. Cathy Wilson was taken to St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. The driver in this case, too, survived.

"They told us Cathy was killed by a drunk driver and we shouldn't look at her and we didn't," Loretta Wilson said. "We couldn't look at her really."

The death of a child is just the beginning of the ordeal. Some weeks after Russell McLain's death, his mother received a disturbing piece of mail.

"I could not believe I was holding a death certificate for my son who was 20 years old," she said. "I was not supposed to do this for him; he was supposed to do this for me when I die."

Charles Wilson agrees with McLain.

"You never think about having to bury one of your own children," he said. "It just changes your life and there is no way it can ever be the same."

For the victims, such a senseless death isn't something they can ever completely get over.

"I go into Cathy's room sometimes and just talk to her," Loretta Wilson said. "That may sound silly to you, but it gives me a moment's peace."

In the cases of Cathy Wilson and Russell McLain, the drivers were each sentenced to four years in prison for manslaughter. One of the saddest footnotes to both tales is that neither driver ever apologized nor learned their lessons. Both, despite having their licenses permanently revoked, have earned subsequent DWI convictions.

According to her mother, Cathy Wilson's killer was again arrested for drinking and driving just a couple of weeks ago.