Thomas’ explosiveness powering NSU offense
December 4, 2013
Legacy left and a legacy sought
December 4, 2013
Nearly seven months have passed since a star-crossed encounter on a dark Terrebonne Parish highway caused a motorist to die and altered the future of the golf-cart-driving teen he swerved to avoid.
Criminal charges against 18-year-old Katelyn Marie Duplantis are still pending – vehicular negligent injuring and driving an improperly equipped vehicle – but are likely to be resolved soon.
Determining how best to handle the case has proved a challenge for attorneys, who say a set of tragically unique circumstances requires a delicate balancing act rather than a cookie cutter approach.
Interviews with attorneys, law enforcement officials and other people with direct knowledge of the case indicate a near-certainty that Duplantis will not receive jail time, although she is alleged to have been drinking before the incident.
Cleveland “Chris” Towns, a 63-year-old engineer living in Montegut, died in a New Orleans hospital six days after the crash. The woman he married just two weeks prior – the two had been friends for years before that – says she has many unanswered questions.
Among them is whether a disposition that includes no incarceration will equate to justice for her late husband.
“They have made it fairly clear that nobody wants to send this girl away,” the still-grieving widow, Laura Browning, said last week, describing conversations she has had with prosecutors.
A close friend in Montegut, Tessie Barlow, is among people who knew Towns and who is left bristling at the possibility that criminal sanctions will be minimal.
“We’re talking about a man who cared about you even if he didn’t know you,” Barlow said. “I have always been the type of person who says if you do the crime, you do the time. My grandpa always said if you made your bed you lie in it. Well she (Duplantis) still has her life and Mr. Chris no longer has his.”
Terrebonne Parish District Judge George Larke will be the ultimate arbiter and he has a range of options at his disposal.
Lafourche Parish District Attorney Cam Morvant is handling the prosecution because at least one member of Terrebonne District Attorney Joe Waitz Jr.’s staff had what appeared to be a conflict of interest.
Morvant has not completed the research he must do to determine what he might offer to Duplantis’ attorneys in return for a plea, or whether the evidence is strong enough for the current charges to go to trial. The responsibility of crafting a just outcome for such a case, he said, is grave.
“I take very seriously what I do and I want to make sure that even the person who did the wrong is treated fairly,” said Morvant, noting that ethical considerations prevent him from discussing details of the case or the options he currently has under review. “We have to be fair to the entire system and must particularly care about the victim. The victim comes first. But we also should not charge somebody with a crime if we don’t believe they are guilty of that crime. But I have been elected to make tough decisions.”
What makes this case difficult, legal experts and local attorneys say, is the ways it differs from a typical crash where a death occurs and one of the parties has been drinking.
Trooper Christopher Mason responded to the scene at around 2:24 a.m. on May 5. His report states that Katelyn Duplantis told him she “was driving a friend’s golf cart on La. 24 … towards South Terrebonne High School (north). (Duplantis) stated she felt he passenger either jump off or fall off the golf cart. (She) then heard tires squealing and looked back. (Duplantis) stated she saw the headlights of Vehicle 2 behind her … (It) quickly swerved to the left and ran off of the roadway and hit a tree. (Duplantis) stated she turned right into her friend’s driveway.”
She then, according to the report, ran back to the scene to see if she could aid the mortally injured Towns and his passenger.
Neither Duplantis nor her passenger was injured. Towns’s SUV struck a low limb on an oak tree alongside Bayou Terrebonne, which ripped open the windshield and flattened the roof.
Duplantis had been attending a party at the home of Shawn DeRoche, a fellow South Terrebonne High School student who would graduate within the month with her. Other students were in attendance as well. The golf cart belonged to the DeRoche family.
Shawn’s parents, Michael and Glenda DeRoche, were not home the night of the party. They later told the trooper that they were at the Cypress Bayou Casino, and that the young people, including Duplantis, had gathered with their permission.
The teens were not known to be troublemakers. Duplantis had distinguished herself academically, with one of the highest grade point averages in her school.
For this, she was given the honor of giving a valedictory address.
“Some people think she is a bad person now, but it was an accident and accidents do happen,” said one current student familiar with the graduating class, who asked not to be identified by name.
“They think she is a bad person now but we also know that accidents do happen,” the student said, describing Duplantis as “an outgoing person who works hard and tries hard. No one really disliked her. She would be described as a good person in general … The people at the party were not the kind who get in trouble. They are not known as drinkers. They are not people you think would drink. They all seemed like nice people.”
Duplantis refused a field sobriety test but after her arrest agreed to a breath test, administered at the Terrebonne Parish jail where she was booked on the negligent injuring charge.
Court papers state that on the night of the wreck she registered a blood alcohol content of .095. For a person over 21 that’s a short bump above legal intoxication. But state law says that for drivers under 21 the legal intoxication limit is .002.
The way state police explained it, the intoxication is a prerequisite for the negligent injuring charge, which is why there was no separate charge made for the DWI.
The accident report includes statements from a witness who was traveling on south on La. Highway 24, opposite the direction the Towns SUV and the golf cart were headed.
According to those statements Towns had swerved first to avoid the golf cart and then continued toward the Bayou Terrebonne bank, further to the left.
Had Towns not swerved, a head-on wreck with the oncoming vehicle could have occurred, statements suggest.
“To avoid hitting us head-on he went across the whole road,” motorist Floyd Boudreaux Jr. told police.
When troopers arrived the purple golf cart, caked with mud, was back at the DeRoche residence. As they questioned and processed Duplantis, Towns was at Terrebonne General Medical Center, where a decision was made to fly him to New Orleans.
At Louisiana State University Hospital, Towns remained on life support.
“He never regained consciousness,” Browning said, explaining that for most of his time there Towns was clinically brain-dead.
She remained at the hospital, focused, she said, on “protecting Chris and making him as comfortable as possible.”
Although visitation was highly restricted, friends continued making the pilgrimage to the hospital, many remaining in the waiting room for long periods of time.
The decision to bring the struggle to an end rested in Browning’s hands and on May 11th at 6:05 p.m. his life came to an end. The intracranial pressure was such, surgeons had said, that there was no hope.
“It took some time to make some decisions and sequencing with organ donations,” a friend of Browning said. “The hospital as well as the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency made it easier for us to be there, to hold him and touch him and tell him everything would be OK.”
Friends said Browning, who had his hand on his heart, felt when it stopped.
After making her bond, Duplantis continued preparing for pending graduation ceremonies from South Terrebonne.
She was one of eight students chosen to give a valedictory address, and although she did not mention the wreck directly, classmates and other students have no doubt certain things she spoke of were a reference to it.
“She spoke about life lessons,” a student present at graduation said.
She has since begun classes at Nicholls State University.
Court officials say a felony conviction – which is likely even presuming a plea is offered – will strip her of the scholarship from which she currently benefits.
Estimates are that she could be sentenced to as much as 200 hours of community service, as well as a probation lasting two years or more.
There are no indications from the report or other witness accounts that there was outright reckless operation of the golf cart, oter than its presence on the highway, which is also disputed.
If the case were to be tried, a host of issues could result in an outright acquittal on the most serious charge, some attorneys have speculated, because a jury must find Duplantis guilty of specific elements of the crime.
A hearing has been scheduled before Judge Larke for Jan. 6. Between now and then Morvant, who has already met with Laura Browning, will have spoken to Towns’ daughters, who live out-of-state. He is keenly aware of the loss experienced by Towns’ family. He is also aware that Katelyn Duplantis, who suffered the loss of her mother when very young, is someone who has tried to work hard, and that whatever he seeks from the court will have an indelible effect on her as well.
“How these processes go is all new to me,” said Towns’ eldest daughter, Crystal Towns Allred, who lives in Athens, Ga., and is not yet certain how she wants the criminal justice system to respond. “I do think the district attorney is trying his best. I have thought about what I want them to do but I don’t have a specific answer yet of what it should be.”
