A Deadly Wandering: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in the Age of Attention

by Matt Richtel

  Nearly an hour and a half had passed, it was almost five p.m. The outlines of the conversation were clear: up with freedom and down with big government. There was still time for a few public comments.

  A WOMAN, WHO SAID she was the mother of six children and the grandmother to twenty-one, stood up. She described herself as just a citizen alarmed by the growing phenomenon of texting and driving. She said it wasn’t just teens, but moms and grandmas, which she realized when she talked about it with a group at a Christmas party a couple months back. “Everyone is doing it.”

  The opposition came from two speakers. One was a representative of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He wondered how police would be able to prove what someone was doing on their phone—texting, talking, emailing, what?—without being intrusive into the motorist’s personal business.

  The other comment, the one that seemed to sum it all up, came from an insurance agent named Michael Tingey. He echoed Wimmer’s concern that this was just another law when there are plenty of laws on the books. But he really got a head of steam when discussing the comparison between drunk driving and texting while driving.

  “The University of Utah study linking drunk driving or cell phone usage is patently ridiculous. It’s inaccurate, and I can prove it to you right now.”

  The insurance man pointed out that way more people in Utah use cell phones than drive drunk, but challenged the committee members to think of how many fewer deaths they’d heard about from texting than drunk driving.

  “I really reject and resent the fact that people are saying that cell phone usage and drunk driving are the same,” he said. “To try to equate them is simply wrong and everyone knows it.”

  He said that what was happening was a good old-fashioned case of political correctness, the vilification of drivers and their cell phones. And he warned that “stampeding” to stem it could lead to unintended consequences. By way of example, he said that everyone talks about the number of children killed in school massacres, but said there had been fewer deaths from such shootings from 1996 to 2001 than there had been during that time caused by air bags deploying in cars and killing children.

  “We didn’t get the public outcry over air bags,” he said. “Why? Because it’s politically correct to point at guns and say this is a terrible thing.”

  Same thing, he said, with cell phones.

  Dr. Strayer had been invited to speak to the legislature, but he was traveling. He’d testified in front of the legislature before, and he didn’t figure his voice would make all that big a contribution. He put the odds that this committee would pass on the legislation for a vote by the full house at “zero.”

  And, on this day, he was right.

  Shortly after Tingey, the insurance man, concluded, the committee took up a vote. There was a motion to pass Clark’s bill out of committee, but it wasn’t seconded. A motion was passed to move on to the next item of business.

  This legislation seemed headed for the cutting-room floor.

  CHAPTER 40

  THE LAWMAKERS

  DOUGLAS AAGARD WAS IN a hurry. The chair of the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Standing Committee was staring down seven agenda items on another Friday afternoon. Of the twelve members of the committee, five were elsewhere, flogging some or another piece of legislation. And Representative Clark, the sponsor of the texting ban, which he’d gotten on the agenda for a final airing, wasn’t anywhere to be found.

  So the Chair moved to the next agenda item. It was sponsored by Wimmer. It was a proposal to extend the statute of limitations on environmental crimes. “Believe it or not, this is a pro-environmental bill,” Wimmer began, eliciting a chuckle. It passed unanimously out of committee.

  Clark still hadn’t returned. Someone suggested that, in his absence, Aagard allow a few more comments from the audience on the texting bill, H.B. 290, officially: The prohibition of Wireless Communication Device Use in a Motor Vehicle.

  Aagard thought that made sense—the place was packed for this hearing—but in asking for comment, he offered a preface: “Bear in mind, we’ve pretty much heard this bill last time so unless you’ve got something to add . . .” In other words, we’ve seen how this plays out, so let’s get it over with and move on to something that this committee intends to pass; let’s quickly move past this last-ditch effort by Clark.

  “We need you to identify who you are and who you’re with.”

  A petite blond woman walked to the front. She had a piece of paper in her hand.

  “My name is Terryl Warner. I’m with the Cache County Attorney’s Office in Logan.” She wore a black dress with a forest-green blazer over it.

  “In July of 2008, a woman in Salt Lake City ran a red light while trying to send a text message. She critically injured one driver and killed a pedestrian,” Terryl launched in. Her voice came across rapid-fire, bouncing, like a rabbit dashing across a warren. She recited some of the research she’d been compiling. “Weeks later, a train operator texting while on the job killed twenty-six people and injured nearly one hundred and fifty. In March of 2007, seventeen-year-old Lauren Mulkey was killed when a texting driver ran a red light. Several months later, five cheerleaders were celebrating after their graduation and they were killed when the driver was texting. In September of 2006, two rocket scientists were killed when a text-messaging driver crossed the center line and struck their vehicle. Several months later, two football players in Cache County were killed when the driver was trying to send a text message and drove into oncoming traffic.” (In fact, Terryl says she was relying on a law enforcement tip that the driver was sending a text message, something that was never proven. Similarly, Terryl had heard widely circulated allegations that the driver who killed Lauren Mulkey was on the phone at the time of the wreck, but that was never proven in court, and the driver pleaded guilty to negligent homicide.)

  Quite obviously, Terryl was trying to counter criticism that texting and driving was merely a theoretical problem, and that it was fair to compare it to such problems as drinking and driving.

  “According to our office,” Terryl said, putting a fine point on it, “we have not had a DUI homicide since 2001. But in the past two and a half years, we’ve had four deaths due to text messaging.”

  Terryl listed a few more stats, including research from the state of Utah that the number-one cause of distraction-related wrecks in the state owed to cell phone use by motorists. She cited some of Dr. Strayer’s research. The committee seemed interested enough, but this was, in a way, more of the same. Each side had their advocates.

  Terryl noticed a few legislators were texting, including Wimmer.

  Terryl concluded: “I have read we should concentrate on DUIs, that we shouldn’t regulate what people do in their cars, and that business people should be able to conduct business while in their vehicles. Those thoughts are unacceptable knowing how dangerous a text-messaging driver is.”

  She sat.

  UP STOOD A YOUNG woman, Paula Hernandez, a high school student, who spoke only for around a minute, saying that texting and driving could be dangerous and the law should “take that privilege away.”

  Committee members thanked her for her courage, ready to move on. Terryl noticed that, while she was testifying and even before it, the committee members had seemed to be only half listening; a couple, she noticed, were even texting, playing with their phones.

  “Anyone else from the audience?” Aagard asked.

  A YOUNG MAN STOOD up.

  “Sir, please come forward.”

  The young man walked to the front. He had a contradictory physical presence, taking up space, a decent-sized kid, but hollowed out. Slumped from the inside. He wore a dark suit and a tie.

  “Again, if you can state your name and who you’re with.”

  “My name is Reggie Shaw and I am a citizen.”

  Up until this point, the most the quiet young man had said about the accident and his feelings was to the probation officer, Kaylene Yon
k. He paused, and looked up.

  “I’m from Tremonton, Utah.” He got that far before his voice broke the first time. “And, uh, the lady that just spoke mentioned of, uh . . . an accident caused, um, in September 2006. Um, I was the one driving the car, texting while driving. Um. Excuse me, I apologize, this is hard for me,” he said, his voice cracking, on the edge of grief. “At the time, before, I did not know of the dangers. I was young. I was ignorant. No one had really talked to me about it, and I know that’s how a lot of people feel today. A lot of people might not know what text messaging is, what is involved, how you do it. It is dangerous.”

  By this point, Reggie had regained much of his composure. It seemed that when he talked about the theoretical, the policy—like whether texting is dangerous—he could hold it together. When he spoke about what he had done, how he felt, then he fell apart, as he did with the next sentence.

  “That accident has changed my life forever,” he said, now really fighting to hold it together. He choke back a sob. “Never, to this point, have I gotten a chance to apologize to those families. I know that they’re here today, and I’d like them to know I’m sincerely sorry.”

  In the audience, Terryl and the families were not sure what to think. Who was this kid, exactly? The one who had lied? The one trying to do a number on Judge Willmore to get his sentence lightened? Was he just satisfying his community-service requirement as outlined in the plea in abeyance? Or was this something more sincere?

  Terryl had met him briefly, prior to the hearing. She, in particular, was having a hell of a time sizing him up. An emotional wall that had been around him came down. She picked up on it when they had met, and now, here was Reggie, sounding a lot more like the person Kaylene had described.

  “This accident has affected my life forever. Um, I can’t even put it into words. And to see a law passed that would prevent people to do this would mean a lot to me, to be able to know that nobody else would have to go through what I’ve gone through. That they would be aware of the dangers that this text messaging is, and what it can do, and the effects it can have. So please listen to the things that I have said, and know it is dangerous and it affects a lot of people’s lives and it is not safe.”

  He turned and walked back to his seat.

  There was a hush over the chamber. Terryl looked around and noticed something: Reggie had brought down the house. “There wasn’t a dry eye,” she says. All the texting had stopped, all the fidgeting. “You could hear a pin drop.”

  TERRYL COULD FEEL HER perspective radically change. It wasn’t just the words or the tone. Reggie was deeply injured, you could just feel it. “In a moment,” she says, “I completely turned, in a moment.”

  It was a remarkable change for her, as instant as the speed with which she’d turned her energies against Reggie. She had heard this apology and it sounded real. She wasn’t looking to punish Reggie for the sake of punishment, but she couldn’t stand someone who victimized other people and just acted like it was the victim’s fault, or there was no blame. That was what bad parents did to defenseless little girls. Now she heard Reggie sound completely real, tortured even. He sounded truly sorry.

  “What he said resonated so much. He could’ve been anyone’s brother, anyone’s boyfriend, anybody’s child—Taylor, or Jayme, any of us. When he just sobbed, I thought: ‘You could be anybody.’ ”

  She still wanted him to serve jail time and she wanted something good to come from the tragedy. But she realized that she and Reggie were no longer on opposite sides. Maybe they could join forces.

  “I decided then and there that I would work with him.”

  REPRESENTATIVE CLARK THOUGHT: REGGIE just turned the whole thing around.

  “We all just sat there dumbfounded, like: ‘Oh, my gosh, that could’ve been our kid,’ ” Clark says, looking back.

  Aagard quietly said: “We appreciate your courage to do this.”

  The chair asked for comment from the members of the committee. There was a brief discussion. Something was different, something even more sober. The makeup of the committee had changed from the last meeting, too. Given all the absences, there were more Democrats than Republicans by a margin of 4–3, with the Democrats perhaps more likely to push the bill out of committee.

  Still, going into the hearing, Clark had serious doubts. “I’d been lobbying them all along, and I couldn’t get any commitments from them at all. They said things like: ‘Well, you do that and pretty soon you’re going to take the phones away from us.’ ”

  After Aagard opened the discussion, Wimmer asked to speak. He reiterated his concerns, but he changed the emphasis of his opposition to whether a law like this could be enforceable. He proposed to do a study. “Let’s get a report back a year later, in the next session, on if this is effective,” he said. “In my experience as a police officer, I really question whether this is enforceable at all. I’d like to be proven wrong—who hasn’t been stuck behind a person texting and wanted to throw the phone out the window.” The line got only a mild laugh. The room had changed; Reggie had altered the tenor to something decidedly sober.

  Wimmer then said something remarkable. “I hope we’re very careful as we go down this road. I’m adamantly, adamantly opposed to outlawing cell phone usage while we’re driving. I hope we don’t start carving out every little possible thing that I’m sure ninety percent of us have done in our vehicle—adjusting the radio, adjusting the air conditioner, all the careless distractions we do.”

  It was noteworthy because it was a sign of what had happened to the room, and what was about to happen. A few minutes later, there was a motion to pass the bill out of committee. It passed, with only Wimmer objecting. It was a huge hurdle.

  On February 26, it passed the full House, by a vote of 55–20. It would still have to pass the Senate and be signed into law.

  CHAPTER 41

  JUSTICE

  ON MARCH 10, AT 3:50 p.m., justice was served in a maelstrom of emotion, grief, and a nagging uncertainty that had plagued these people since it all began.

  Judge Willmore sat elevated, sedate, tie barely showing over the top of his black robe, his torso seeming nearly to shrink behind the bench. He spoke slowly, deliberately, a slight, distant whistle in his voice accompanying some of his harder syllables. Short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, glasses, he was a patient, almost invisible arbiter of justice with an occasional strained pitch in his voice to punctuate the frustrations this case had inspired in him.

  In the copy of Les Misérables that he kept in the upper right drawer of his desk, he had underlined many passages. There was one, on page 74 of his edition, that comes under the heading “A Place for Arriving at Convictions” and discusses a chaotic courtroom scene in France in the early 1900s, where the book’s protagonist, Jean Valjean, faces judgment.

  “At one end of the hall at which he found himself, heedless justice in threadbare robes were biting their fingernails or closing their eyelids, at the other end was a ragged rabble. There were lawyers in all sorts of attitudes,” the passage begins, and goes on to describe this mess of humanity, all the absorbed and self-absorbed participants, even the inattentive judges, but then concludes: “for men felt herein the presence of that great human thing which is called law and that great divine thing that is called justice.”

  Judge Willmore called to order the courtroom. Seated in the galley, a smattering of onlookers joined the families. On the left side (from the judge’s perspective) Terryl was seated beside Jackie, who sat with Megan and her husband. Leila sat on the other side of the aisle.

  Linton waited at the prosecutor’s table, in a black suit and maroon tie. Beside him was Rindlisbacher in a heavy, brown highway patrol jacket. Reggie and Bunderson sat to the far left; Reggie looked less terrified than brave, almost welcoming.

  Judge Willmore explained that a plea had been reached, and that he’d rule shortly on the particulars of the sentence. He had a few conditions up the sleeve of his robe that the parties hadn’t barg
ained for.

  First, he asked Bunderson and Reggie to come to the defense table, across the aisle from Linton, to hear what they had to say in advance of sentencing. Bunderson, half a head shorter than Reggie, pulled the thin microphone close and began by asking for Judge Willmore to set another hearing in six months. By that time, Bunderson said, Reggie should have been able to complete whatever jail time he’d been assigned and the fifty hours of community service that the parties had agreed to.

  He’s not done yet, Bunderson said, but “he’s heading that direction.” And in six months, Bunderson hoped, the judge would allow Reggie to be done with his sentence and have his record cleared.

  Then the lawyer delved into the presentencing report, the one compiled by Kaylene Yonk. “I’ve rarely seen a presentencing report so favorable to the defendant.” He went on to say that Kaylene described Reggie as having been in shock after the accident and that’s why, Bunderson said, he didn’t tell Rindlisbacher what had happened or even remember or know what had happened.

  “He’s not a criminal in any sense of the word other than he was involved in an accident and he’s willing to take responsibility for it,” Bunderson said. “He’s willing to man up.”

  And he sought to distinguish what Reggie had done—the act of texting and driving—from other negligent behaviors with terrible consequences. “This is not a crime in the sense that you deal with every day or in the sense that Mr. Linton and I deal with every day. There’s no intent in any of this.

  “Your Honor,” he continued, becoming more animated, “there but for the grace of God go I, go you, goes everyone in this courtroom—Mr. Linton, Officer Rindlisbacher, and everyone else here. We’ve all looked at something or done something to distract ourselves while driving.”