It was 1963 and she was a 17 year old driver on a back country road. She goes through a stop sign, hits another car, and kills its 17-year old driver.
Y'know, we're talking about over four decades ago... and there's not a lot of relevance these days, but look at the defensive onslaught she's bringing to bear:
- It was dark
- It was a bad intersection
- The stop sign was small
- The victim's car was unsafe
No worries, there's more:
- Immediate concern for the other driver - “The whole time,” she adds later, “I was praying that the person in the other car was alive. In my mind, I was calling ‘Please, God. Please, God. Please, God,’ over and over and over again.”
- The victim's car was unsafe
Whatever relevance these two items might have, it is beyond dispute that they do nothing to excuse the initial mistake of blowing through a stop sign. And shame on that poor kid for driving an unsafe car, no?
Look, you want to come clean about a mistake of yours that killed somebody - you should probably dial down the surrounding noise.
It doesn't stop with the accident.
She doesn't go the the victim's funeral - but even that wasn't her fault, you see? Her parents didn't want her to go, so instead she slept through it.
Honest to Pete - if I killed somebody in an accident, I wouldn't go to their funeral - because it would be an insult to their family. No matter how sorry I was - I'd be a distraction from an event that should be entirely focused on the deceased and their family.
You could say that, and hold your head up - but no. Her parents stopped her. It was beyond her control.
I'm sure this will get a good amount of press for her new book, but this hardly sounds like a person opening up. More like papering over. She's said nothing in the past, so sure, you could say it's more open than nothing.
But "open"? I think not.
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