A Car Is a Lethal Weapon, Too

The Boston Herald

Their faces aren't on the front page and their deaths didn't get national attention not just because the guy who killed them plea-bargained in lieu of a trial. But because they died in a car crash, not in a hail of bullets. Had Kevin Hurley gone on a rampage with a gun six years ago, he wouldn't have been granted parole on Monday. But he used a car to kill, and so this is acceptable.

Hurley was 18 and a senior at Central High School in Springfield when he drove drunk and killed three people on May 4, 1999. Carleen Kane, 15, and Chris Cerez, 22, were passengers in Hurley's car. Jimmy Gauthier was 21 and riding in a Toyota that Hurley's Hyundai destroyed. All three died instantly.

Hurley, whose blood-alcohol was more than twice the legal limit, passed a mail truck on the right, jerked his car back into the left lane and then lost control. His car fishtailed and landed sideways in the path of oncoming traffic.

This is what happened because Hurley spent the afternoon drinking beer with friends, then drove: Lina Alvarez, 23, whose car Hurley hit, lost her fiance, Jimmy Gauthier, broke both legs, suffered massive internal injuries and had her face ripped apart.

Her sister, Elizabeth Alvarez, 21, suffered disfiguring facial injuries, too. But far worse - Elizabeth's 20-month-old son, Hector, who had been in a car seat, had his neck broken.

While Hurley met with lawyers and finished high school and got accepted to college, the Kanes and the Cerezes buried their children and tried to learn to live without them. Lina Alvarez wept for her fiance and her nephew as she fought for her own life. Hector was fighting for life, too, the toddler paralyzed from the neck down and attached to a ventilator at Franciscan Children's Hospital.

Twenty-three months after the crash, after countless delays, Hurley, who pled not guilty at his indictment, finally admitted his guilt, made a deal with the court and got a lesser sentence than he might have had the case gone to trial.

Carleen Kane's father had planned to speak at Hurley's parole hearing Monday. But he didn't because he broke down. Because other families spoke first and their pain was his.

“Kevin Hurley won parole on March 14, 2005. It happens to be his 24th birthday,'' he said after the hearing. ``He will be on probation for five years. He does not have to perform the community service promised in the plea bargain nor has his license been revoked for 10 years. He will have served two weeks less than four years for four deaths.’'

Four deaths because Hector M. Padilla Jr., died on Christmas Eve, 2003 at the age of 6 after three and a half years of operations, suffering and prayers.

If Kevin Hurley had used a gun to kill and maim, he wouldn't be walking out of jail next month. A car is a lethal weapon, too. It's murder, not an accident, when people drive drunk and kill.