THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 26, 1994 TAG: 9412260067
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Long : 117 lines
Dozens of times in the past year, Tim White has relived the accident in his dreams - seen the guardrail slam into his girlfriend's chest, watched his best friend crushed and a pregnant friend tossed from the car as his blue Mazda sedan was ripped in half.
Two of his passengers died immediately; the third died five days after the Nov. 30, 1993, crash.
``I see the car when it hits the guardrail,'' said White, 23. ``Then I wake up in the dream, and I see my friends lying in the street all torn apart. There is nothing I can do.''
Bloody images of the accident also invade his waking thoughts as he marks off his days at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail.
``It's really a horrifying thing, to be honest with you,'' he said. ``It's about to drive me insane. It's still with me, and it's been a year ago. It's just like it happened yesterday.''
White was sentenced to seven years for the deaths of his girlfriend, Susan D. Moore, 21, his best friend, Robert E. King, 29, and King's girlfriend, Jo Ann Bradshaw, 33, who was three months pregnant. White pleaded guilty to drunken driving and involuntary manslaughter.
Now he wants to send a message out from his jail cell. He wants to persuade others to think before they get behind the wheel of a car after drinking, to make sure they understand the horrible possibilities.
He has interviewed on television and plans to do radio shows, including the Perry Stone Show on WNIS (850 AM) at 3 p.m. today. He also is writing a book, and wants to devote some of the proceeds to groups that fight drunken driving and to a memorial fund for the victims' families.
For those families, the pain continues.
Bessie Bradshaw Vann, Jo Ann Bradshaw's older sister, said she remains angry as she watches Bradshaw's children, a girl 15 and a boy 12, grow up without their mother. She is upset because she doesn't think White ever adequately apologized in court or elsewhere.
``If he was man enough to get behind the wheel and do what he did, I think he should have been man enough to turn around to each family and say he was sorry,'' she said.
She doesn't mind White's talking to groups about the dangers of drinking and driving, but she is troubled to hear that he plans to write a book.
``He was so damned drunk that night that he didn't know what he was doing, how fast he was going or what he hit,'' she said. ``So how can he write a book about it?''
The accident that killed his friends left White shaken and scared.
``I've got scars on my face and on my elbow from when they operated,'' he said. ``I've got one big scar inside my head. Those will be with me all my life.''
White receives more reminders in the mail. The state keeps sending him a $300 bill to replace the guardrail, a bill he says he can't pay. An insurance company is demanding $25,000 to cover the victims' medical and funeral costs. He says he doesn't have the money to pay them. The Bradshaw family has a lawsuit pending against him for expenses.
``It's hard for me to talk about this wreck, but I figure if I can get it out maybe I can stop someone else from doing this,'' he said. ``I ain't trying to make anyone feel sorry for me. I'm trying to get people to stop before they experience something like I did.''
Suffolk police call the accident on Virginia Route 10 south of Chuckatuck one of the most violent they've ever seen. They never determined how fast White was going. There were no skid marks. The two pieces of the car came to rest 80 feet apart.
White told police after the crash that he had not been drinking. Prosecutors argued he told paramedics at the scene that he had consumed a 12-pack of beer.
A couple of months ago, White first opened up to his friend Brian Holland and admitted that he was drinking that night. Holland encouraged him to tell his story.
In the hours before the accident, White; his girlfriend, Susan Moore; and best friend, Robert King, shared a case of Budweiser at a house in Suffolk, White said. He drank eight or nine beers between 8 and 10:30 p.m., he says.
As he climbed into the driver's seat, he briefly considered that he shouldn't be driving. But it was only a half-hour drive to the gas station in Smithfield where Bradshaw was working, he said.
``I could have stopped it, but the alcohol told me to go ahead and do it,'' he said. ``I thought, `I can do this. I can make this.' But it didn't work that way.''
On the recent anniversary of the crash, White said, he ``woke up screaming. It just hit me. I was a mess. It made me cry just about all day. My heart was hurting.''
White said he hasn't figured out why he was the only survivor. He said he made three attempts to commit suicide between the time he was released from the hospital and when he was arrested.
Even as his brother drove him home from the hospital, he had to hold White in the car. Being in a car made White nervous.
``He hit a speed bump, and that scared me,'' White said. ``I tried to jump out of the car before we even left the hospital parking lot.''
In recent months, White has decided to make the best of his situation.
``I figured if I could get through and talk to people, maybe I could stop someone else from it happening to them,'' he said.
He wonders what the rest of his life will be like.
``I don't know if I'll be able to love a girl again because I'm afraid something like this will happen,'' he said. ``My life is never going to be like it was. My mind is going to be different. Every time I see a beer can, it's going to turn my stomach.''
White said he had problems with alcohol when he was younger but had gotten them under control. He said he had three charges of drunk in public in Missouri, but only traffic violations since moving to Virginia about a year ago.
``Maybe if I can tell people what it's like they'll listen,'' he said.
White's warning is: ``Don't get behind the wheel. It ain't worth it. You'll just end up in jail and you may end up taking the lives of your loved ones. I wish you would listen to me. I wish I wasn't driving that night. I feel like it's my fault that these people aren't here anymore, and I just can't get over it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI/
Tim White's drunken drinking killed his girlfriend, best friend and
a pregnant woman.
KEYWORDS: DRUNK DRIVING ACCIDENT TRAFFIC FATALITY CONVICTION by CNB