By Jean Cole
Janice Gooch misses the sound of their back door closing and their daughter arriving to say hello, drink some coffee and put on some makeup before taking their 12-year-old granddaughter to school.
“I don’t want her death to be in vain,” Janice said through tears Tuesday.
She hopes the life sentence with chance for parole given the man convicted of her daughter’s reckless murder will serve as a lesson to others convicted of driving drunk.
“I want something to come of it,” Janice said. “I hope some alcoholics read what he got and maybe this will change them all.”
Until that happens, she hopes lawmakers will strengthen the DUI law for repeat offenders. State legislators could begin by restoring the lifetime limit on DUIs, a law that was mistakenly weakened during a revision to strengthen it and, so far, not restored. Gov. Bob Riley has said he would see that the legislature restored the law, but the law stands.
Carrie Ann Gooch Nave died in 2008 after Stanley Lynn Wray – a man with eight prior DUI convictions – struck her car on Alabama 127, just north of Athens, according to Limestone County Assistant Prosecutor Becky Grimes, who prosecuted Wray, and wreck reports.
Wray, 45, of Elkmont had entered a blind guilty plea in June, meaning he had no plea agreement and would take his chances at sentencing. His request for leniency denied, Limestone Circuit Judge Bob Baker gave Wray the maximum sentence allowed by law for reckless murder – life with chance for parole. Baker also sentenced Wray to simultaneously serve 20 years for first-degree assault for seriously injuring Nave’s daughter, Columbia.
Just after the wreck, Wray’s blood-alcohol level measured .319 percent and higher – nearly four times the legal limit of .08 percent. A forensic science toxicology lab measured Wray’s blood-alcohol level at .319 percent and his urine-alcohol level at .428 percent, Grimes said, while Huntsville Hospital measured his blood-alcohol level at .414 percent.
At the time of the wreck, Wray was on probation for a 2006 conviction for felony driving under the influence – meaning he had already had three or more convictions for DUI in a five-year span, records show. He had been released from prison in December after having served one year on a split sentence with the rest of the five-year sentence to be served on probation. Although he was barred from driving for the next five years, he drove anyway. And on April 26, 2008, he did so after consuming an almost incomprehensible amount of alcohol, according to court records.
Carrie, her 30-year-old husband Chad and their daughter Columbia were driving home from the Piggly Wiggly grocery store in Elkmont when the accident occurred about 5 p.m., Janice said.
The front and driver’s side of the Nave vehicle were severely damaged. Although Nave was wearing a seat belt and the car’s air bag deployed, she did not survive the crash. Columbia was seriously injured and flown by MedFlight helicopter to Huntsville Hospital. Chad was treated for minor injuries at Athens-Limestone Hospital, along with Wray.
Wray was initially charged with violating probation on the DUI and later charged with reckless murder for killing Nave and assault for seriously injuring Columbia, who fractured her right wrist, left elbow, ribs and femur.
“It’s like there is a piece of a puzzle missing and we will never get the piece back,” Janice said. “That space will never be filled. It just won’t be.”
Left in the void is a 13-year-old daughter who has had to fumble forward without her mother. Now a seventh-grader at Elkmont High School, Columbia does not like to be long away from her father, who still grieves the loss of the sweetheart he met in high school, Janice said.
“She is doing well, and she loves to run,” Janice said. “She doesn’t talk about missing her mom, but she will say when we are shopping ‘Momma would like those shoes,’ or ‘Momma would like that color.’ ”
Janice and husband Charles understand the loss felt by both their granddaughter and their son-in-law. They have lost a child before. Their eldest, Charlie, drowned in March 1973 when he was only 6, Janice said. Their middle child Cynthia Lee Cardwell survives.
Despite Wray’s lengthy sentence, the Gooches worry he will be released someday and that, if he does, he will drink again and drive again and kill again.
“I’m worried that he will be released after we are gone and do it again,” Janice said.
“I wouldn’t wish what we have been through on anyone,” Charles said.
Grimes said he could be released because, under Alabama law, the life sentence in this case includes possibility of parole. There was no other option under the law, she said.
Although the Gooches can’t bring back their daughter or guarantee that Wray is never released, they are thankful for the sentence and the people who helped them through the devastation, including volunteers from MADD, crisis services, the Limestone County District Attorney’s Office and, particularly, state trooper William Waldrop of Cullman.
“He called us and gave us his home phone numbers and his work number and his cell number and said if we could think of anything we need or if there was any question we had to call him,” Janice said. “He was the backbone of every bit of this investigation, and that’s what put Stanley Wray in prison.”
