Every crime is a tragedy, but not every tragedy is a crime. That should have been the lesson of Inspiration Drive.
But sometimes the grieving process gets stuck on anger.
That awful night in Parker began innocently enough on June 18, 2004. Three teenage boys were riding along with Todd Stansfield, who was driving his parents’ 1990 Lexus.
It was rainy and foggy. He’d only had his driver’s license for a couple of weeks. It wasn’t very late, maybe 8:30, and none of the kids had been drinking.
No one knows exactly what happened next – reports vary – but Stansfield’s car crashed head-on into 77-year-old Marvin “Mike” Gilchrist’s Chrysler Sebring.
Four people died. Stansfield, who was 16 at the time, was critically injured, but survived.
When he emerged from a coma and recovered from his injuries, he had no memory of the crash.
He was charged as an adult with four counts of vehicular homicide, reckless driving and careless driving causing death. If convicted, he could have been sentenced to up to 24 years in prison.
Mike Knight, spokesman for District Attorney Carol Chambers, said at the time that the decision to try him as an adult was based on the “magnitude of the case.”
“Four deaths were attributed directly to the actions of this man,” he said.
Last week, a plea agreement with the district attorney was reached, however, and if approved by a judge, the deal will spare him a sentence in adult prison.
Under the agreement, Stansfield is expected to plead guilty to two counts of criminally negligent homicide. He likely will serve 90 days in juvenile detention, 12 years on probation and 1,200 hours of community service. In addition, he won’t be allowed to participate in his high-school graduation or any organized sports until he is 21.
His sentencing hearing is set for Sept. 16.
Stansfield’s supporters said the punishment is still too harsh. They had urged the court to limit his sentence to probation and community service, and they confessed to deep ambivalence about the plea bargain.
“I’m not sure how I feel about it,” said Mary Majestic, whose son, Tony, was killed in the crash. She said she understood why Stansfield agreed to the deal. “It was the lesser of two evils,” she said.
Majestic and her husband, Ivan, have rallied support for Stansfield in the community, circulating petitions and encouraging neighbors to contact the district attorney to complain about what they consider prosecutorial excess.
“Had it gone to trial, I believe he would have had a good chance at even less,” Majestic said.
Sherri Budge, whose son, Michael, died in the crash, also had hoped for more compassion for Stansfield.
“If this is an agreement that his family feels is a good agreement, then I’m all behind it,” she said. “I’m just thankful he’s not going to adult prison.”
The Gilchrist family and the parents of Sean Student, 17, who also was killed in the crash, did not join Budge and the Majestics in their sympathy for Stansfield.
Stansfield’s attorney and the district attorney’s office declined to comment on the case last week, but the two counts of criminally negligent homicide that remain against Stansfield likely represent those families’ interests.
Majestic will never believe that a crime was committed that night. “In my heart I know this was an accident,” she said. “I did not want to see still another child being hurt in all of this.”
For all of them, though, an end to the prosecution of Stansfield is hardly an end to the pain.
If it’s true that anger is only the second stage of grief, they’ve still got a long, long way to go.
Budge acknowledged as much when she heard the news about the plea bargain.
“Now comes the hard part of grieving,” she said, choking back a sob. “Now there’s no distraction.”
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
