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Photograph of Diane Schuler with her husband Danny, son Bryan and daughter Erin
Now state police, based on witnesses' reports, say a driver matching Schuler's description was driving "in an aggressive, erratic manner"—the minivan "was weaving in and out of traffic and straddling two lanes, with the driver honking her horn and flashing high beams on Route 17 and the New York State Thruway." Newsday adds, "At one point, the woman drove the minivan into the Ramapo service area and swerved across a grassy median. Another witness said she tried to pass him on the highway shoulder." While an initial autopsy revealed that Schuler appeared healthy, she did tell her brother, in a cellphone conversation 30 minutes before the crash, that she wasn't feeling well and was having trouble seeing.
Update: WCBS 2 apparently has details from a toxicology report: "The unreleased toxicology report apparently reveals that 36-year-old Diane Schuler had a blood alcohol content of .19, and traces of THC, the main substance found in marijuana, sources say. The legal limit for blood alcohol content is .08." The Journal-News says the findings were released with the victims' families but "State police Lt. Dominick L. Chiumento said he could neither confirm nor deny the reports."
Update, 5:45 p.m.: Some more details:
- City Room: State police confirmed that Schuler's blood alcohol was 0.19; also, "a 1.75-liter bottle of Absolut vodka was found in the minivan."
- Cops say that Schuler had about 10 drinks and she still had 6 grams of alcohol in her stomach when she was killed. It's unclear if she drank before or during the drive. (Also: Wikipedia's blood alcohol content chart)
- 1010 WINS: "Tests also found she smoked marijuana up to an hour before the wreck."
- Newsday: The deaths of the seven other victims are being investigated as homicides: The victims are "Schuler's 2-year-old daughter, Erin; her three nieces, Emma Hance, 8, Alyson Hance, 7, and Kate Hance, 5; and three Yonkers men in the SUV, Guy Bastardi, 49, and his father, Michael Bastardi, 81, and their friend, Daniel Longo, 73."
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She was lucid enough to pull over and call her brother at the beginning of the episode. Then she inexplicably leaves her phone behind and drives as dangerously as possible on several roads. Was she looking for help? Did she suffer some sort of psychotic break and try to kill herself? It sounds like she may have been drugged. How awful for both families, and all of their loved ones.
Also, her husband mentioned that she was fine when they left the campgrounds several hours earlier in separate cars and that she planned to stop and get something to eat. Could she have been poisoned, either deliberately or inadvertently? The timeline suggests that this 'episode' began after she would have eaten... I am surprised that no one seems to be discussing this possibility.
I agree w/both of you. Something isn't adding up... slipped a mickey via her food, pot brownies, who knows, just seems odd, that anyone else in her family would have let her go w/an alcohol level that high and obvious other means of transportation, there def is more to this story.
In spite of all the "friends don't let friends drive drunk" rhetoric, it's probably less common for someone to actually stop someone else from doing it than it is to simply ignore it or not even notice it.
Her husband was lying. Most likely they drank together and she was "the one who could drive".
Dear Lord! What a terrible ordeal did those poor kids go through; she terrorized them for all that time. I'm sure they must have been crying and the older one must have been begging her to stop.
Yes, I've imagined that too. That must have been terrifying for them.
From previous stories, she didn't seem like the type to get drunk and then drive with kids in the car, but people always make their dearly departed out to be saints so who knows. Very sad.
It sounds an awful lot to me like she was having a stroke.
Could be, but with high blood alcohol and THC.....
Ugh so sad. I'm sure those kids were freaking the hell out and saw the van barreling toward them. Someone mentioned that she might have had super-low blood sugar, which could be the cause of the craziness.
EVERYONE HERE SHOULD STOP SPECULATING AND WAIT FOR THE FACTS ABOUT HER HEALTH TO COME OUT, EVERYONE HERE IS EITHER A DOCTOR OR AN INVESTERGATOR
I think it is only natural for people to speculate, this seems so crazy that people want to find a reason behind it. So senseless. I don't think it's wrong for people to be "investergators."
I know it's just mispelled, but I have to say, you've almost created a new word there. Awesome!
OKAY. WE'LL TAKE YOUR ADVICE AND NOT TALK ABOUT IT UNTIL THE FULL MEDICAL REPORT IS FINISHED.
WHY ARE YOU TWO SHOUTING?
Odd...
and once again, someone misses the sarcasm train . . .
It still sounds like an aura migraine to me. You can basically go totally blind during one.
But if you are aware of going blind, don't you stop driving? There had to be a psychiatric component to whatever happened. Maybe a stroke. Or, as I speculated above, perhaps she unknowingly ingested drugs/poison.
Not necessarily. The first time you get a migraine you are generally confused and have no idea what's wrong with you. But it appears to be a moot point, see jaycjay below...
Let the wild speculation end. WCBS is now reporting that the toxicology report says she had "a blood alcohol content of .19, and traces of THC" in her system.
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/taconic.state.parkway.2.1114132.html
Wow, wasn't expecting that. Drunk in the middle of the day? Damn. THC probably doesn't mean anything if it was just traces, since it stays in your system about a month if you have a lot of body fat.
Right, the THC probably had no effect. But a .19 BAC usually will.
BTW, regarding some of the above comments: a preliminary autopsy, while not reporting any positive finds, had already ruled out stroke, aneurysm, and heart attack.
Hmm... while WCBS says "traces" of THC, the other article linked in the update above says "high levels."
More as it develops, I suppose.
awful, just awful
i can't imagine the terror those poor kids were going through up until she murdered them
so very sad
I wonder about her driving record.
RE: Update
Well F#ck her then. What an #sshole.
You are allowed to write fuck and asshole on this site. I mean, you basically did, you just substituted a letter from each with another symbol for some idiotic reason. Just write fuck and asshole and I will judge you less.
Fuck you Hymentown, you douchebag.
I wish there was a "like" button I could click for that post.
Traces of THC? That doesn't tell us she was smoking right before the crash.
As jaycjay mentioned, the blood alcohol level is probably the bigger factor in impairing driving ability.
I can't wait for the potheads to show up and say, "See? It wasn't MJ that did her in, it was the alcohol. If you won't make drinking illegal, you should legalize pot!"
Well?
yes, clearly that is the chain of logic here.
you win a kind-cookie.
Well it's not really relevant to the story, but that doesn't make it untrue. Alcohol and pot...they're both bad for you and impair your ability to drive.
mellow out. nobody cares about your anti-marijuana morality and this hardly seems like the appropriate story to vent it on (e.g. dead children).
Hotstepper: Agreed!
SpiritOf76 has repeatedly proven himself to be a miserable, ahedonistic, lonely, boring, old man who gets his kicks from misanthropic, moralistic comments like the one you caught.
Dead children give him a springboard for his meanness.
Says the man who likes to rail against "Diktator Sadik-Khan" and the evil minions of DOT, plus bike lanes, Summer Streets, Broadway Boulevard, the High Line, etc. You sure aren't miserable or misanthropic, surely. But okay, you're not moralistic, I'll give you that. In fact, you have no mores or ethics at all.
Did you have anything even remotely germane to say about the story? Anything at all? I didn't think so.
Shit. Maybe she tossed her phone and took off in order to avoid being found out? I wonder if her brother told her he was sending the police?
Still, I don't see why a mother with five kids in the car wouldn't find a way to stall and avoid driving drunk once she realizes she is not well. And all of that flagrant, "aggressive" behavior- it sounds like the opposite of what a drunk person would do if they were trying to hide the fact that they were drinking.
I don't get it.
Might be what a drunk person would do if they were trying to avoid being found out, but it's also what a lot of drunk drivers just do. Not uncommon, either, for drunk people to lose their cell phones.
It sounds to me like she was an angry/mean drunk. And they left the campground at 9:30 in the morning? She was drunk already? There were no bottles in the van as far as we know.
makes me wonder how wrecked the rest of the family was that they thought SHE was the sober-enough-one to drive the kids home.
40,000 Americans die in auto accidents every year. Why do we choose to live like this?
uh, because driving fast is awesome.
Yep. Vroom!
This is why I hate driving. You never know when some stupid, irresponsible asshole is gonna put your life in danger.
Driving fast is awesomely stupid. .
oh really? well maybe you can explain to me what's awesomer:
A) driving wicked fast, having a half-dozen near misses in the span of a hour, pulling over once to threaten a slow driver in your lane at a red-light and arriving at your destination feeling super cool because you drove there really fast the whole way
OR
B) driving sensibly and arriving at the same destination 5 minutes later with no road rage incidents
if you answered A, than you are unamerican. and a huge nerd. yeah, that's right. how's the kia-driving lifestyle, nerdburger???
Awwzzz....but drivingz fast izz wixxxedzz kewlzz lolzzz
Did I get the lolspeak right? Its been a while since I was a tween.
debatable
So if she was that drunk, and the husband said she seemed fine when he left... was he driving drunk as well? Surely he must have known she was drinking a lot that day and let her drive? Now his story doesn't make sense...
"Now his story doesn't make sense..."
Seriously, what's with the people saying this kind of thing? You're not often around drinkers, or you're not often around cars? The reality is that people let other people drive drunk all the time. OK, it "doesn't make sense" but it's certainly not unbelievable or out of the ordinary.
Likely scenario: the husband had his plans (what was it, a boating outing? Don't remember exactly) and wanted to go do it. Sure, she'd had a few drinks but so what? Nothing ever happens...
Husband left the campground at 9:30 am. She didn't call her brother until 1 pm, and the accident happened 30 minutes after that. It's quite possible that she was fine when her husband last saw her.
His saying "she seemed completely fine" is not the same as well we had a few drinks and smoked a bit of weed but she seemed ok enough to drive... Maybe he was drunker than her so she seemed fine in relation to his condition. I just think it seems he's been less than honest about the preceding circumstances of this accident. I'm around drinkers and cars enough to know that fellow drunk people let drunks drive. I'd like to think a sober person wouldn't let a drunk person drive a car full of kids home. I guess I'm an idealist.
Who are these people who drink a lot while in their adult-lives when they have kids? I don't get it. A drink or two - sure, great, enjoy yourself. Getting sh*tfaced at a BBQ? Great role model...
They're called alcoholics.
I'd be willing to put a breathalyzer in my car that wouldn't allow me to start it if I was drunk (and I hardly ever drink alcohol) if it meant that everyone had to have one in their cars.
There are a lot of reasons why she became disoriented--seizure, migraine, blood sugar, stroke etc., and perhaps having a drink or two is so normal in this family's life, that they thought nothing of it. Then on the other, maybe somebody slipped some rohyphnol into her drink knowing the consequences. It all sounds so very Law and Order to me.
Correction, " a lot of reasons why she may have become disoriented..."
.19 is a lot of booze. and roofies don't spike the BAC. or fail to show up in toxicology reports.
I don't know. I'm 35; and have both epilepsy and migraines. And I know when both a seizure and the migraine is coming.
I don't think it's a medical condition. Hard as it is to say about a middle-class seemingly normal woman with children -- it's the booze. Poisoning or anything else is a far-out theory that wouldn't be true outside a James Ellory novel. If the BAC is true -- She was an alcholic. And she killed herself, her children, and her children's cousins. And that poor boy is going to have to grow up as the only survivor of something so horrific even we, detatched as we are, can't admit the truth about it.
Now the whole story just doesn't make sense. A BAL of .19 is very, visibly drunk. But no one involved, the family or witnesses, have said she seemed inebriated - only that she mentioned feeling ill. Call me crazy or naive, but this puts a little more suspicion in my mind that she might have been drugged. Or the family was lying, I suppose. But at this point there's still no telling what really happened.
It's also possible that she downed a handle of Jack in the McDonald's bathroom or just was drinking while she was driving. Who knows? Or maybe she wasn't drunk and this source is wrong.
Seems plausible to me that the family might avoid admitting that she was drunk. See already how the tone of the discussion around her and the incident has changed.
TOTALLY DOSED, DUDE!
someone definitely slipped her 6 drinks without her noticing. happens ALL THE TIME.
gotta watch out for that.
family was lying to cover their own asses. everyone was shit-faced.
I got the impression that the 2 Schulers were the only adults on this particular trip, with the 5 kids. This is why she had her nieces in the car. I very highly doubt that the husband in this case would allow his wife to drive all that way with the kids in the car if he suspected she was impaired. We know enough details at this point to surmise that she became impaired after leaving the site, given that several hours had elapsed.
well, all being-a-cold-heartless-dick aside, something is clearly amiss here.
will the 5-year old that survived be able to recount any details?
Conjecture anyone?
what are you, new here?
They fought. He went fishing and she went and got shitfaced and drove angry and high. Somewhere a few miles behind that cell phone they'll find the empty Smirnoff's bottle.
also, no one has yet mentioned the 2 hours of mystery time between Parksville and Tarrytown. It's only a 90 mile drive, but she wasn't in Tarrytown until 1pm after leaving Parksville at 9:30am. Now, I realize it takes longer to go anywhere with kids, but that's more than double the projected time.
All we know for sure is that they went to a McDonalds. And that 4 hours elapsed between the time that they all left the campsite (according to the husband) and the time of the accident. I may be naive, but I don't buy that she knowingly got shitfaced while driving and 5 kids were in her care. She could drink anytime. Unless she planned on killing them all...
if your last suggestion were the case, it would not be the first case of "mom loses her shit, takes family down with her."
"I may be naive, but I don't buy that she knowingly got shitfaced while driving and 5 kids were in her care"
With a little searching on Google News, I'm sure you could find four or five NYC-area DWI arrests in the past month or so in which kids were in the car.
I didn't know her, or her husband. I can't speculate one way or the other as to whether it would be out of character or whether it was completely routine.
Can someone accidentally get shitfaced? Like to the point where they blow a 0.19? People are crazy and do crazy stuff. That day she was crazy.
You may very well be right. Looks like you were right on the vodka bottle thing...
There's an emotional element to it too though. I will admit here on Gothamist under my assumed juvenile name that I too on occasion have driven drunk and high. But I never did it while angry (no excuse, I know). I was always trying to drive as carefully as possible so as to not get killed or caught. She had thrown all that to the wind. She was pissed about something, and it probably had to do with her husband.
Tragic no matter what happened...
What the fuck? If this is true, she should have killed herself & not the poor kids in the car that were innocent...
Wild Conjecture.
Hyperbolic Hypothesis.
Conspiracy Theory.
Responses?
This does seem like a bit more than just drunkenness. But either way, she's dead now, as is her daughter, as are her nieces, and her remaining family members have to live with that. No matter what happened, it's a tragedy. No sense demonizing her now. She already paid the worst price imaginable for whatever led up to this.
There's plenty of sense demonizing her, as she not only murdered the young children in her minivan, but she also took down innocent people in the SUV that she hit. And unless she's burning in hell (which, unfortunately, doesn't exist), then she's not paying the worst price imaginable. To merely call this matter a "tragedy" denies her role in creating the tragedy.
I agree. It's not a "tragedy." A tragedy is when a little kid wanders into a swimming pool and drowns. If this information is true, then this was murder, and this woman is responsible.
The real tragedy is that there are millions of kids living with alcoholic parents, and have to put up with this shit on a regular basis. Some of them live through it but have issues as adults, and others don't live through it at all.
Millions of kids have parents that drive the wrong direction on the Taconic?
"Note to self: avoid Taconic"
She paid "the worst price imaginable"? An instant, probably painless death while high as a kite? Honey, we are ALL going to pay "the worst price imaginable" (as you call death), and most of us won't have it so easy.
Looks to me like she either deliberately murdered those 8 people, and maimed her son, or was just so intent on killing herself that she had no problems with taking anyone with her. When you murder your parents, you don't get sympathy for being an orphan. And when you murder your child, neices, and random strangers, you don't get sympathy for being a bereaved mother.
Good riddance to this alkie. Wish I believed in hell, so I could imagine her burning there for all eternity.
I'm sorry - I guess I was unclear. I don't consider death "the worst price imaginable", and I don't think that hers justifies the death of all the innocent others killed in this horrific tragedy.
But I have to assume that, had she survived the accident, she wouldn't have wanted to go on living - alcoholism is an illness, and that is in no way an excuse for her obvious gross negligence, but being inflicted with said illness doesn't mean she "deliberately murdered those 8 people." I doubt she would even be charged with voluntary manslaughter, were she alive for your vitriolic and uninformed character assessment. But jaycjay might correct me there.
We're both just making assumptions, since she is dead and all anyone here has are scattered news reports about a tragedy involving strangers to us. But where you assume this "alkie" deserves to "burn in Hell for all eternity", I feel as if she deserves the assumption that, if she'd lived through this, she wouldn't appear as a woman who set out to kill her child, her nieces, total strangers. She'd feel such shame and guilt, nobody would need to tell her she'd deserve to die because she'd likely think it already.
If this is story incites national public discussion, I think it should focus on the hideous nature of alcoholism and how to identify people with an addiction, how to help them seek help, how to keep their loved ones safe from harm. But I don't it serves any purpose to all sit around and talk about what a heartless, mindless idiot this woman must've been. She's dead now. You can keep crossing your fingers that she's roasting in Hell but it won't change anything, will it, Honey?
None of us know what any of this is about.
I'm sorry, but you're obviously too sensible and compassionate.
Seeing a report of a found bottle of Absolut in the car:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/driver-in-crash-that-killed-8-was-drunk-officials-say/?hp
The big 1.75 liter Absolut bottle too. The Times said she had the equivalent of ten drinks in her body, and also high levels of THC.
Also, family is no longer cooperating in the investigation...
Eight counts of homicide including his own children. Her husband has what left to lose? He should tell the truth and cooperate and glean whatever dignity may be left for him, the sad prick.
The husband has nothing to gain by maligning his dead wife or confessing to the world that he knew/suspected she was a drinker. The damage has been done. He still has a son to protect, not to mention the fact that he has to look his in-laws in the face. I am not so sure he is culpable of anything- not only did she have plenty of time to get wasted after he left, but the tox report showed a significant amt. of yet-undigested alcohol in her stomach. That he would clam up now in an effort to maintain some privacy for the family is to be expected. He's probably in shock.
I am beginning to think that her actions were deliberate.
I said this at the time it happened and all theories need to be investigated but could this be intentional?
NOW this story is starting to make much more sense. Suburban Mom smoking weed and doing drugs.
The facts are pretty simple. At .19 your bombed. Her husband is just covering his ass for the inevitable family on family lawsuit.
Whatever the case, it's a very tragic car accident. If she was drunk, insurance will not cover a shred of an impending law suit.
Sorry Ed, "accident" denotes that it was an unavoidable tragedy. This incident, on the other hand, was completely avoidable, if this poor excuse for a human being exerted some self control and decided not to tie one on before having to drive children home. One does not "accidentally" drive the wrong way on a highway, unless you're 96 years old and/or mentally incompetent.
She deserves none of our sympathy.
Drunk drivers are murderers.
If more people used mass transit there would be less tradegies like this one.
Oh, I think the results would have been far worse if she got sh*tfaced and then got behind the controls of a commuter train...
who are any of you to judge her until all the facts are in and made public?
How dare you question all of the anonymous rambling theories on the internet???
Unless something else comes up on the tox, verdict is in. DWI, with tragic results. Gross & micro path are done, chems done. Stroke, blood sugar, etc ruled out. She was a hammered selfish POS with kids in the car, and no concern for them or the other innocent guys in the SUV she killed thru her actions. Would have been better had she made it to LI and driven into a canal with an empty van. Sounds like if it wasn't that day, it would have been another. Horrible she had to ruin so many other lives.
I think she was drugged at the McDonald's somehow. Or else it will come out that she was a closet alcoholic. I can't imagine why she would call her brother saying she felt disoriented--sounds like something was happening that wasn't making her feel right--same with the horn blaring. Don't drunk people just drive drunk? The horn leads me to think she was feeling totally out of it and scared.
I think the investigation needs to continue.
Seriously, wtf is up with the conspiracy theorists on this one? She was plastered, she killed not only her child but her siblings children, because she was a selfish alcoholic. She will rot in hell. End of story.
I was thinking the same thing. What the hell is up with all these people making excuses for this lady?
Face it folks, she was a worthless piece of shit who MURDERED seven people.
I can't help but feel for everyone involved, Diane included. Shitty decisions that ended in multiple tragedies.
I should have just said this in my initial comment above.
I agree.
Stop wasting your time watching stupid TV shows and playing armchair detective, folks. Before any more knuckleheads posit their theories, please preface them with an explanation as to how she got to 0.19 with undigested ethanol in the gut. You don't get that accidentally. The glinting Gilette of Occam stll rules.
David MacCallum isn't gonna entertain you on this one. Drunk driver, many dead, 'nuf said.
"The big 1.75 liter Absolut bottle." That is some serious amount of alcohol supply. Why does someone take that big a bottle on a "camping" trip with a bunch of kids?
Was the bottle half full or half empty when she started her trip home? There are still some pieces missing here. If she started drinking early in the morning wouldn't her husband say something? But then again looking at the photo I would ask what highschool in West Virginia did her husband drop out from?
If it's the plastic bottle they might know how much was left. If it was glass then it got shattered in the collision.
Hey, we've all partied on camping/canoeing/hunting/fishing trips, except for those who only sip a Mimosa while berry picking. But hopefully not while driving. Was the bottle just packed away with all the camping stuff, or easily accessable? Sounds like she topped off that super-size Diet Sprite at McD's and kept sipping on down the road. Regardless of the rest, she was hammered.
And BTW, West Va has some kick-all fishin and hunting, taint all bad. Even though the residents look like the evolutionary source of Staten Islanders.
there's a special place in hell for stupid selfish twats like her.
“she was feeling disoriented and had trouble seeing,”
One has to be a total stupid fucking asshole who is feeling disoriented and has trouble seeing to continue driving. Fortunately she died. Unfortunately she took too many others with her.
The mystery continues to unravel. Was the smoke adulterated?
"Was the smoke adulterated?"???
Huh? Seriously, What does that mean?
DUH! You can lace marijuana with other drugs. Get it? Probably not.
Yeah, cause obviously the BAC had nothing to do with the crash. Must be laced MJ, right? Since MJ is such a harmless drug...
Riiiiggghhhhhtttt.
Seeing there are so many lawn chair Monday morning detectives here how about the case of JonBenét Ramsey?
Suicide. JonBenet's life of performing and the pressure to be perfect drove her to stage her own death. It was all in the Weekly World News.
From Parksville to Tarrytown is about an hour and a half drive at the most. If she was smoked from drinking as claimed by her call to her brother I would find that hard to believe if she only started drinking at the beginning of the drive. If she was a heavy drinker then her tolerance level would be higher. An hour of drinking doesn't usually make you wack.
I would really like to get more info on her husband before I make a final decision on what is going on here.
Husband's irrelevant. Personal responsibilty. Entered vehicle either drinking and/or drank during the trip. Early in the AM, on an empty stomach (or even not empty), pounding Vodka, regardless of tolerance will easily get you to 0.19 & impaired. Also could've been carrying some BAC from the night before. Hair of the Dog, especially a very hairy dog, can kill you. Husband has nothing to do with the BAC. Although the inevitable lawyers will imply that he "should have or could have known" that she was wasted or at risk of such while operating with others in the vehicle. The stomach is a wonderful absorber of ethanol. Undigested ethanol in the gut is a very reliable indicator of very recent ingestion. And yes, I did spend quite a few moths in the ME's office.
"Investigators revealed Monday that Schuler had been driving erratically for nearly 60 miles before the fiery crash and stopped at a Liberty, N.Y., McDonald's on the drive home from a camping trip at the nearby Hunter Lake Campground.
Her husband, Daniel Schuler, told police they left the campground around 9:30 a.m. and his wife was fine.
Around 1 p.m., Schuler called her brother - whose daughters were in the car - and said she was sick and needed help driving.
The brother, Warren Hance, called State Police in Tarrytown to say Schuler needed help. Troopers searched for the red minivan she was driving, but didn't find her in time.
Around 1:30 p.m., Schuler entered the north-bound Taconic via an exit ramp."
OK so they stopped off at the McDonald's in Liberty, NY which appears to be pretty close to where they were camping. So then she leaves the McDonalds and drives 60 miles erratically? It's only 90 miles from there to Tarrytown at the most.
So let's say she stopped off at a nearby McD's at about 10AM ate and then got back in the van about 10:45. OK let's say 11:00. We are not talking fine cuisine here it's McD's. How the fuck do you go approximately 90 miles in two hours if you are driving erratically?
Doesn't McD's have cameras that will give us a true picture of when they arrived and when they left?
Not to be a smart ass here but McD's food can cause some serious problems. The food is total shit and gives me diarrhea every time I eat there.
Back on point. What actually did she say to her brother that prompted him to call state police? And how did they react? Did they respond to it as a serious incident or a ho hum kind of thing?
Awwhh, Jeez, McD's food gave her a 0.19 at the time of death. Angus Deluxe, or even the horrific MegaBreakfast does not cause you to drive the wrong way down a highway for 1.7 miles in a van full of kids. And, OK, let's say you were wasted the night bfore. And, OK, lets say you have a Mimosa or Bloody Mary while you're loading up the kids. And OK, you've got a buzz, stop at McD's, top off that Diet Sprite with a healthy dollop of Absolut. And, OK, you keep chugging, make a drunken phonecall to your brother, you sound so bad he calls the SP, you drop your cellphone. Yeah, McD's sucks, but cameras, husband, etc are irrelevant. Drunk driver, dead people, nothing mysterious. Wish this had never happened, no mystery, enough, goodnight.
Nightmare for the husband and family. He lost his wife, kids and now will get a lawsuit from the Bastardis' and Longos' family.
Another good question is how long has she been smoking weed? Did the husband know she was doing drugs? Does he do drugs too?
If this woman had been black and poor, would there have been dozens of posts trying to avoid blaming her for her actions?
She was drunk, she drove drunk, and she murdered people. End of story.
Where are you going with this?
Really? You don't get it? You don't see the double standard in the way ppl are reacting to all this? The evidence is there for everyone to see what she did, yet everyone wants to cut this person some slack and try to make excuses for her actions or find a "reasonable explanation" for why she recklessly endangered the lives of so many people. There ARE none. She was a selfish, evil person and was no less of scumbag than the black guy a few months ago who mowed down that young mother while DWI.
BTW, oshma1963 only has it partially right. If she'd been poor and white, the entire world would still be condemning her actions because according to it, she'd be "trailer trash." Funny how when the middle class commits acts of recklessness, everyone wants to fight tooth and nail to "understand" their actions and ascribe their actions to human fallibility. Yet anyone else and they're just typical subhuman animals or "trash."
This has been classified as a homicide, however it does not seem as if charges will be filed. This woman was a monster. Seems like she committed suicide and took 4 children and 3 completely innocent men with her.
These men are receiving little media attention: their names are Guy Bastardi, 49; his father, Michael Bastardi, 81; and a family friend, Daniel Longo, 74, all of Yonkers. The elder gentlemen were veterans of the Korean war.
May they and the children rest in peace. And best wishes to the 5 year old who survived and will one day have to try to comprehend what his own mother did.
"it does not seem as if charges will be filed." How do you file charges against a dead person? I can see if she had an estate, and charges could be filed against the estate, but against the dead individual?
JenChungsBra has been spot on, which leads me to agree with him/her about the state of the relationship and why she did what she did (even though I don't agree with ripping on Jen Chung :) ).
.19 BAC while toking the good stuff is awful, but it takes a truly deranged state of mind to drive as psychotically as she did. When I'm that ripped and having a good time, it's not like I'm perfect, but I'm also not recklessly going about my business with a blatant disregard for life.
However, when people are that ripped and in emotional distress and hating life, they'll be a lot more reckless. My guess is that she was on a full suicide mission, but it's possible she was just completely deranged and shitfaced without wishing death upon herself and those around her.
Either way, sounds like she was shitfaced because she was in a heinous mood about something, and that there's no possible way she was partying just for the fun of it on a Sunday morning.
Those poor victims from Yonkers...
If you're watching the prick lawyer on TV, he is saying that no alcohol was involved. What the hell is going on here?
That's correct