Towerys angered by laws that allowed driver to be drunk and on road with sentencing pending on fourth OWI conviction

By Joe Gerrety
Journal and Courier - 10/10/99

Dan and Margie Towery watched their 24-year-old daughter and her boyfriend die in a violent automobile crash seven months ago.

But don't dare refer to it as an accident.

The Towerys believe that the drunken driver who crossed the center line March 21 and hit Chip Smith and Sarah Towery head-on on County Road 350 South was a fatality waiting to happen.

They consider it murder.

Dan Towery has viewed the videotape, taken at the Mirage nightclub the afternoon before the crash, of Jeffrey Pedone Trout being served 10 drinks in two hours and 26 minutes and then walking to his truck. Trout also died in the wreck. Toxicology tests indicated he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.27 percent at the time of the crash, as well as cocaine metabolites in his blood.

Towery is convinced that not only Trout but society is to blame for the death of Chip Smith and his daughter.

"As I watch each drink being given, the angle clearly shows the doubles ... being poured," Towery said. "As upset as I am with Trout, this would have been his fifth OWI."

Towery blames a legal system that allowed Trout, who was free on bond and awaiting sentencing on his fourth OWI conviction, to have access to a vehicle. And he blames a liquor licensing system that prohibits bartenders from serving intoxicated customers but doesn't train them how to avoid doing that.

"There are some traffic fatalities that are true accidents - that are a result of people making mistakes," Margie Towery said. "But drunk driving fatalities, while we can't stop all of them, we could prevent a lot of them. But society has to take responsibility for those changes."

With that in mind, the Towerys have composed an 11-point "Sarah Towery-Chip Smith Drunk Driving Reform Initiative" that they plan to share with legislators and judges in hopes of protecting the lives of other Hoosier motorists.

Most of the proposals are legal reforms targeting a criminal justice system that hasn't yet found an effective, workable way to deal with repeat drunken drivers.

Among their proposals, the Towerys want to see uniformity among states in what level of intoxication is prohibited. Many states have adopted a .08 percent blood-alcohol content as the legal threshold, but in Indiana, the legal limit for criminal charges is .10 percent.

They also propose a uniform computerized system of record-keeping developed nationwide so that police and prosecutors can accurately trace the history of drivers, such as Trout, who have OWI convictions in multiple states.

But more than anything, Dan Towery would like to see more judges adopt the use of the ignition interlock system as a term of probation for people convicted of drunken driving. The system requires a driver to give a breath test before starting his vehicle. If the device detects more than .025percent alcohol, the vehicle won't start.

No Lafayette-area judges have adopted the system, which would require a local entrepreneur to set up a franchise for installation and maintenance of the systems. One Indiana judge, Judge Richard Culver of Hancock Superior Court 2, has used the technology on a regular basis for the past seven years.

"It is obvious that many judges fail to grasp the potential of new technology," Towery said. "This will not only reduce the number of repeat offenders but will cause the casual drinker to consider the consequences of having too many beers on the golf course."

Some early support

While the Towerys have been frustrated with the response from many government officials they've contacted for information, some have been supportive.

"I can't imagine going through what that family has gone through," said Lafayette Mayor Dave Heath, who helped the Towerys get access to information about Jeff Trout from the police investigation into the crash.

He wishes the Towerys luck in their quest for legislative reform. He said the city has been doing what it can by improving enforcement, adding 14 city police officers in the past three years. But he thinks the real solution to stopping drunken driving is long-term.

"You've got to start early with kids. It's the same thing as driving off without buckling your seat belts," Heath said. "It's just something you don't do."

After reading the Towerys' list of proposals state Sen. Ronnie J. Alting wasted no time. Within days of reading the list, provided by a Journal and Courier reporter preparing this report, he asked the Legislative Services Agency to begin drafting bills that would make three of the proposals a reality.

Those proposals would require training on serving alcohol for bartenders and waiters/waitresses; mandatory revocation of a bartender's license for serving an intoxicated customer; and that habitual substance offenders be ineligible to receive a bartender's license.

Alting said nearly everything on the Towerys' list is workable.

"All of them have a lot of merit, and if we're ever going to attack the problem it's going to take the effort of concerned parents like this," he said.

Why so lackadaisical?

Making any of the Towerys' initiatives a reality would require getting the attention of local law enforcement and criminal justice officials and overcoming the ingrained inertia of state bureaucracies, a problem that confounds Margie Towery.

"I'm angry that our society allows this to happen so much - that our society is so blasé about drunk driving fatalities," she said.

The staggering statistics locally in just the past two years should be enough of an eye-opener - at least 40 alcohol-related driving fatalities in Tippecanoe and nearby counties. Nine people have been killed since March in Tippecanoe County alone.

"There is no silver bullet. It's always a comprehensive approach," Dan said. "And part of the problem is the officials have to admit to the problem."

Not that there aren't organizations already working on it. What frustrates the Towerys is that the caring people fighting the problem now take what they see as too narrow an approach.

Mothers Against Drunken Driving (MADD), which doesn't have an active chapter in Greater Lafayette, is focused on reducing the legal limit for intoxicated driving in Indiana to .08 percent. The Coalition for a Drug-Free Tippecanoe County has zeroed in on the underage-drinking problem, the Towerys said.

Death colors everything

Perhaps the Towerys are focused on a comprehensive approach to the problem of drunken driving because the death of their daughter has had such a comprehensive effect on them.

"It's impacted every part of our lives. It affects the way you think about the past," Margie said. "And when you lose your kids, you lose your future. ... You just have to reconstruct everything."

During a vacation early last month, the Towerys took a driving trip to northeastern Minnesota, visiting sites along Lake Superior where they'd taken family vacations with Sarah and her sister, Lisa, when they were children.

They scattered some of Sarah's ashes along the way, but the trip was clouded with too many memories that aren't happy ones anymore.

"It's like the whole meaning of life has changed," Margie said. "It's like any of the memories we had have changed. It's all tinged with her death and how she died."

Not surprising, considering the Towerys watched the horrific crash that killed their daughter and Smith in their rear-view mirrors.

Lives cut short

Chip Smith had met Sarah Towery seven months earlier at the Springfield, Ill., engineering firm where they both worked.

Sarah, of Auburn, Ill., worked full-time and was studying business at the University of Illinois-Springfield, expected to graduate with a bachelor's degree next spring.

She owned her own home, loved to travel, and had a cat named Beetle, who now lives with her parents.

Chip, 20, was a drill rig operator and a volunteer firefighter in Riverton, Ill. This was his first visit to Lafayette.

The Towerys were traveling in a separate vehicle, ahead of Chip and Sarah. They planned to go hiking near Attica before Chip and Sarah continued home to Illinois.

They were headed west on County Road 350 South, a brand-new, flat, two-lane highway with wide shoulders, on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Chip and Sarah were wearing seat belts and traveling in a 1994 Toyota Camry equipped with airbags.

Helpless feeling

With Trout driving eastbound in excess of 65 mph, those safety features weren't enough to save Chip and Sarah. Trout's full-size pickup truck went left of center, sideswiped a westbound vehicle, swerved back to the right around Dan and Margie Towery's car, overcorrected and careened on two wheels into Chip's car.

The Toyota rolled and spun, and Trout's truck ended up on it's side with Trout partially ejected. Dan Towery and others at the crash scene pulled Trout's body away from the wreck as the truck burst into flames.

Chip died at the scene; Sarah was kept alive for several hours and died later at Home Hospital.

The Towerys are still trying to understand the series of coincidences that brought Trout and their daughter together so tragically at that moment on that stretch of highway. A few seconds' time difference or a slight change in the day's plans, and Sarah would still be alive.

They can't do anything about fate, but they believe they can do something about the system of laws that allowed Trout to be on that highway in his condition that afternoon.

"We can't do anything to change the past," Dan said. "I'm willing to work with the system to see practical, prudent changes occur."

The Towerys hope their campaign will counter the feeling of powerlessness that has shackled them since that fateful afternoon March 21.

"We couldn't do anything for Chip and Sarah except hold their hands and tell them we loved them," Margie said.

CRASH AFTERMATH: Sarah Towery, 24, and her boyfriend, Earl E. "Chip" Smith III, 20, were killed when Smith's car was hit by a truck driven by Jeffrey A. Pedone Trout, 39. The triple-fatal accident happened on County Road 350 South in Lafayette on Sunday, March 21, 1999. File photo by Amy Bombassaro/Journal and Courier.