EVANSTON, Wyo. — What remains of the family has gathered in this cozy household to talk about the person who is no longer around to occupy his usual role as the Olds family prankster.
They are a close-knit family bonded by the transiency of Kelley Olds' job as a petroleum engineer. The father of four follows job opportunities from oil companies around the world, and the family has moved a lot during the years — from Texas to Scotland, Spain to Louisiana — and finally Evanston.
Benjamin Olds and his jokes were the glue that held the family together.
Now Benjamin, the oldest child, is gone — his life snuffed out by a drunken driver one year ago. In this working-class Evanston neighborhood, his family is trying to move on. They are trying to move past the shock and sadness of Jan. 9, 2000, when a pickup truck driven by a man with a history of drunken driving ran a red light in Salt Lake City and rammed Ben's Honda Prelude, killing him instantly.
The family members aren't bitter; they don't hate the man who killed their Benjamin. They simply refuse to waste energy thinking about him.
Except the youngest of Benjamin Olds' three siblings is having a hard time. Fifteen-year-old Kelsey has had trouble moving on from the tragedy of her big brother's death. She can sit and listen for a few minutes as her parents retell the story of the night Benjamin died. Then tears well up in her eyes, she rises and quietly disappears.
"Nearly 500 days ago, I was dragged, sobbing and disbelieving, to another place. It's a world very different from the one most of you have known. It's a world where you can't fix what's broken. It's a world where any one of us is the next actual, real target. Things here don't happen to 'the other guy.' Things here happen to you and me, and it's no nightmare — it's real. In this world, people are randomly, indiscriminately, horribly mutilated by human beings driving cars." — Letter to the editor written by Mary Phillips, Friday, Dec. 20, 1996. Phillips lost her daughter to a drunken driver.
This is the most emotional, visceral consequence of drunken driving. Then come questions.
How is it that a man with a history of drinking and driving, someone who has paid fines and completed treatment, can once again be behind the wheel of a car and kill a son and big brother like Benjamin Olds?
How can it be that on another night, a man can be arrested at 9 p.m. in Salt Lake City with three times the legal amount of alcohol in his system, then be out of jail and arrested again even more intoxicated four hours later after he nearly runs head-on into a police officer?
Why is it that demographic information in Utah is so disorganized there is virtually no way to draw a clear profile of a drunken driver? Advocates who fight for tougher sentences and drunken-driving laws say they desperately need this data to build public-awareness campaigns.
How is it that a Utah man who kills a woman with his car in the first month of the new century can have eight drunken-driving convictions and still be operating a vehicle?
A team of Deseret News reporters spent two months studying this issue, and their research revealed several startling factors:
In this supposedly technology-savvy state — where Gov. Mike Leavitt has promoted his "Silicon Valley Alliance" to gain technology-related businesses from California's Silicon Valley — Utah courts and law enforcement officers cannot easily tap into a defendant's prior record of drunken-driving convictions online.
Myriad parties close to the issue blame each other for the problem. Most everyone agrees computer systems are a mess. The main network that tracks drunken-driving convictions isn't up to date; some counties don't report DUI convictions.
Some say police officers are lazy and don't take time to check available computer sites for prior convictions. Courts are clogged, others say, and prosecutors file the wrong charges, judges are too lenient and defense attorneys are ever at the ready to plead a case down so a drunken driver really doesn't seem so bad after all.
Although a new law requires ignition interlock devices on vehicles registered to anyone convicted of a second DUI offense within six years — only about 50 of the devices have been ordered by judges and installed.
The state-ordered education program for Utahns convicted of drunken driving has no way to measure its effectiveness.
Most local judges, under direction from legal counsel, refuse to be held accountable for their record on DUI sentences.
At the outset of this project, the Deseret News asked judges to respond anonymously to a general survey about their role in the statewide problem of drunken driving. But Brent Johnson, general counsel for the Administrative Office of the Courts, told the newspaper the Code of Judicial Conduct prohibited judges from answering the survey.
"It is therefore generally not appropriate for a judge to comment on perceived loopholes or inadequacies of a legislative enactment," Johnson wrote. He told the Deseret News he was speaking for several judges who believed it was "inappropriate" to answer even general questions about drunken-driving sentences.
The Deseret News appealed with a letter, to which Johnson did not respond.
Two judges, Pamela Heffernan and Jerald Jensen of the 2nd District, were happy to answer reporters' questions on the topic.
The current system is sufficient and effective. The problem is soft judges . . . who sentence defendants to work release, basically making jail a bed-and- breakfast, or home confinement, which is useless." — A Salt Lake attorney who asked not to be named.
The attorney, who responded to a Deseret News survey, said she believed if the consequences of a DUI offender's actions are severe, there should be severe punishment. She echoed discontent from police officers, who criticize judges who sentence repeat offenders to counseling and community service but little jail time.
She said many judges in her area "buy off" on repeat offenders' excuses, opting for less punitive sentences.
"Mine are a constant stream of repeat offenders," she said of her clientele. "It's incredible. And the first thing they say to a judge is that they're in counseling. They say they have jobs and families to take care of. That may be true, but the victims are so offended. To have defendants dictate their work schedules for the judges to work around, it's ridiculous."
Utah's problem exists all over. In a recent article in Congressional Quarterly, John Moulden, president of the National Commission Against Drunk Driving, wrote, "The problem isn't a lack of legislation but the absence of our collective commitment and political will to use the statutes and countermeasures we already have."
After public pressure, much work is being directed toward a database of drunken-driving offenders. And changes in the law now enable prosecutors to charge drunken drivers with anything from a class B misdemeanor to a second-degree felony, so some drunken drivers are serving prison time.
But it has taken public pressure, said Bart Blackstock, who is close to this issue as head of driver's services at the state driver's license division.
"I think over time the biggest factor is that the public has been willing to say, 'Oh well, it's OK,' " Blackstock said. "That's turned around in a major way in the last two or three years. People are starting to care, and that puts pressure on the system to do a better job."
Rehabilitation services are "pressed to the max," Blackstock said, and some judges are too easy on DUI offenders. "There are those who have been willing to slap their hands and send them home, so to speak," he said. "They do not provide the tools to punish and get people off the roads."
Drinking and driving is like taking a loaded gun and shooting it into a crowd. You shouldn't be surprised when it kills someone. You knew it was going to happen." —Theresa Olds, Benjamin Olds' mother.
Theresa and Kelly Olds fondly remember the last time they saw their 20-year-old son, Benjamin. It was Christmas Day 1999, and Ben had dyed his hair green to play elf to his father's Santa Claus. Two short weeks later, Theresa and Kelly buried their son in a Salt Lake City cemetery — green hair and all.
When Theresa Olds received the call telling her of the accident, she thought it was a mistake. Surely someone else was driving Ben's car.
The entire family made the 80-mile drive to Salt Lake City in a dark rainstorm. Ben's three siblings stayed with a relative while the parents went to identify their son's body.
Prosecutors allege the man driving the truck, Israel Patrida Ledesma, was headed for his Ogden home after a night of drinking in a Salt Lake bar. After his truck smashed into Ben's vehicle, Ledesma fled the scene on foot and was arrested six hours later at a 7-Eleven, court documents say.
Ledesma, a repeat DUI offender with problems going back to 1992, was arrested and charged with second-degree felony automobile homicide; driving under the influence of alcohol, a class A misdemeanor; and three other traffic violations. He has since been ruled incompetent to stand trial and is now in the state hospital undergoing a mental evaluation.
Ledesma's attorney, Scott Williams, has been unavailable to answer a reporter's questions.
The 27-year-old Mexican national, who was in Utah illegally, had an outstanding warrant for his arrest for a previous DUI, charges state. Theresa Olds said her son's death became more tragic when they learned of Ledesma's history of drinking.
In Ogden in 1992, Ledesma pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an alcohol-related accident.
He was stopped in 1997 by a Utah Highway Patrol trooper and arrested for investigation of an open container, DUI and no insurance. Court records show no charges were ever filed in this case.
He pleaded guilty in May 1998 in Roy to a class B misdemeanor DUI and sentenced to 30 days in jail, but the sentence was suspended. Ledesma paid a $750 fine, completed an alcohol treatment program through Weber Human Services and was placed on one year's probation. Ledesma failed to appear for a review hearing at the end of his probation, and a warrant was issued for his arrest in July 1999. Police didn't arrest him on that warrant until 18 months later, the night Ledesma was picked up after the accident that killed Benjamin Olds.
Ledesma evaded police on three occasions on Jan. 9, 2000, before Olds was killed. Officers suspected he was driving under the influence.
"That really bothers you. They should have taken care of it the first time," Theresa Olds said. "If they would have followed up on the first one, it would have made a difference."
A year after his death, the family is able to talk about the person the world lost that January night.
Ben was an "artist as a whole," from writing and playing music on his guitar to drawing and painting in a number of mediums. He had once mused about becoming an architect to combine his love of art with his knack for math. He was a thoughtful son who ate breakfast with his mother once a week and a good friend. His Louisiana friends traveled to Salt Lake City in a rented van to attend his funeral.
He was a caring older brother who accompanied his youngest sister to her first dance, and — in complete older-brother fashion — dressed in a mismatched, outdated Deseret Industries outfit just to embarrass her.
The family remembers how Benjamin Olds checked on his sisters in their shared bedroom every night before he turned in. He would bid the girls good night and turn off the small bedside lamp Cynthia Olds left on just for him.
"Sometimes I still leave a light on, just waiting for him to turn it off."
There are so many other options. It's ridiculous to think you can just get in a car and drive drunk." — Cynthia Olds, 17, Benjamin's sister.
Benjamin Olds was a lot of things to a lot of people, which is what 17-year-old Cynthia Olds hopes Ledesma will understand one day.
"I'd give anything just to talk to him and see what he thinks about it," she said. "I'd like to tell him who Ben was. I think if he just knew, he wouldn't do it again."
Unlike their daughter, Theresa and Kelly Olds have no desire to speak to Ledesma. "I don't have any feelings for him," Theresa Olds said. "I don't want to waste time on him.
But the family does want justice, which may be hard to come by.
Immediately following the accident, a police officer told the Olds family not to expect Ledesma to serve more than one year in jail. With all the pretrial motions and mental evaluations, that year is up. The family is not seeking vengeance and doesn't advocate Ledesma spend the rest of his life in prison, but they also say one year in jail is not enough.
"If Ben would have lived to be 80 years old, then he took away 60 years of my son's life, our grandchildren," Kelly Olds said. "To take a few years of (Ledesma's) life is a small price to pay."
Monday: What police officers say about repeat DUI offenders.
Contributing: Jenifer K. Nii
E-mail: lucy@desnews.com;awelling@desnews.com