No one at Barron High School seemed to know exactly when the four ducked out of class on the morning of February 27, 1996. High school juniors Wonzel Crowe, Jeremy Whitman, and Jasper Stamper, and senior Saulo Rodriguez were not problem students. In fact, they were some of the highest young achievers in this rural community of about three thousand people in northwestern Wisconsin. Rodriguez reigned as the conference wrestling champion at 119 pounds and had recently placed fifth in the state meet. Stamper looked forward to improving on his school record 6-foot, 5-inch high jump during the spring track season. Crowe had earned a reputation for working hard and was being primed to take over the beef cattle farm that had been in the family for five generations.
But for some reason, the four were in a reckless party mood on that frosty winter morning. On their way to school, Crowe and Stamper had stopped by the home of 17-year-old Joshua McEwen. There they purchased a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of brandy for $20. Sometime after reporting for school, Crowe, Stamper, Whitman, and Rodriguez took off in Crowe’s 1989 Ford Ranger.
An icy road
At about 10:45 that morning, John Elam drove his community sanitation truck out on the highway on his daily rounds. About a mile northeast of Barron, he came upon Crowe’s vehicle, which was approaching at a high rate of speed from the east. The Ford Ranger swerved from its lane and then spun out of control. It slid several hundred yards on the ice-covered road before slamming broadside into the garbage truck. The impact was so devastating that it knocked the heavy truck on its side. Elam suffered only minor injuries. But amid the shattered glass and twisted wreckage of the pickup, all four high school boys lay dead of massive injuries.
Finding glass from a liquor bottle in Stamper’s lap, investigators immediately suspected that drinking was the cause of the accident. State laboratory blood tests confirmed that all four had been drinking. Crowe, who was driving, had a blood alcohol content of nearly twice the level at which a driver is legally considered intoxicated.
Why?
News of the tragedy stunned the Barron community. More than a thousand people crammed the high school gym to pay their last respects to the victims. When the shock began to wear off, they began to ask how such a thing could have happened to these fine young men. How could this senseless slaughter have been avoided? Who was to blame?
Legal authorities zeroed in on Joshua McEwen, who had supplied the four with liquor. McEwen eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The court sentenced him to six months in jail, three years’ probation, and $2,000 in restitution. “I didn’t mean to bring anyone harm by what I did,”1 he told the court.
The remorse was all too familiar to the judge, who noted, “Most people end up here because they didn’t think about the consequences of their actions.”2 The same words applied to the four young men, who were ultimately responsible for their own behavior. Crowe’s sister, Aliesha Harelstad, tried to get this message across to local high school students. “My brother thought he was invincible. But the fact is that there are a lot of things that can happen, especially if you don’t make responsible choices.”3
Unbearable consequences
A lot of things can happen to someone who chooses to drink and drive, and almost all of them are bad: death, serious injury, jail, heavy fines, suspension of driving privileges, the weight of a guilty conscience, or nightmares that will not go away. Worst of all, by ignoring the risks of drinking and driving, Crowe, Whitman, Stamper, and Rodriguez brought unspeakable anguish to those who loved them. Rodriguez’s father, Nicolas, pleaded with young people to wake up to the dangers of drinking and driving. “Spare your friends, teachers, and family the pain of a fatal mistake,” he said. “More specifically, your parents, who might, like myself . . . have to carry the heavy burden of not being able to say to my son, ‘I love you, Saulo.’”4
Unfortunately, despite many such warnings and strict laws that prohibit the consumption of liquor by teenagers, teens continue to drink and drive. Every year thousands of parents and siblings have to go through the anguish that gripped Nicolas Rodriguez and Aliesha Harelstad. Thousands more will have their lives shattered when a loved one is an innocent victim of someone else who drinks and drives.
Did this raise a question for you?
