For driver who killed friend, pain never goes away

May 17, 2008 12:16 am

— By Melissa Dunson
mdunson@joplinglobe.com
The deepest of Heather Jensen’s scars lie below the skin.
There’s the scar on her right arm from a car wreck that left her with several plates and screws in her forearm, she said.
But it’s the scars that no one can see — scars from a different night, when she was driving — that keep her up at night.
“Some days I have to force myself to get up and look in the mirror,” Jensen said. “Sometimes I don’t like myself, like I don’t even want to be in my own skin. It depends on what day of the week it is.”
Jensen, now a 29-year-old Webb City resident, killed her best friend, Vanessa Leary, in a high-speed car accident in 2003. She got behind the wheel after a three-week methamphetamine binge. Jensen was 24. Leary had just turned 21. Jensen spent four years in prison for what she did.
‘Invincible’
During her four years in prison, Jensen said she had lots of time to think about what she did and why she did it.
“At the time, you think you’re invincible,” she said. “Now, I realize that was stupidity. It took someone else’s life to make me realize I wasn’t invincible.”
Jensen said she consistently took unjustifiable risks as a teenager, and time after time walked away nearly unscathed. She described herself as “crazy,” “wild,” and a “daredevil.” She said she jumped from one motorcycle to another while racing down the road, totaled three cars, dabbled in illegal drugs and got drunk for the first time at age 13.
“I kind of liked to see how much I could get away with,” she said.
Jensen doesn’t remember much about the day Vanessa died. She picked up her friend and headed for Wal-Mart to pick up toys for Vanessa’s 3-year-old son, Joshua.
The last conversation the two friends had could have been between any two girls who had grown up together; they were talking about boys.
“The last thing I remember telling (Vanessa) was, ‘You’re a dork,’” Jensen said.
Jensen has had to rely on police officers and witnesses for what happened next.
They told her she was trying to pass a semi while speeding, lost control and crashed on Interstate 44 near the Joplin/Racine exit. Vanessa was ejected through the back window of Jensen’s car.
Jensen walked away with a severe concussion. Vanessa was killed.
Jensen said she had always known it was wrong to drive under the influence of alcohol, but drove under the influence of drugs many times. It took Vanessa’s death to make her realize there was no difference.
“I used to get offended when people called me an offender, but then I realized that’s what I am,” she said. “My car was my lethal weapon. It was murder whether I meant it or not.”
Still paying
Although her prison sentence is over, Jensen is still paying emotional restitution. Prison was the easy part, she said.
“I can’t call her family and tell them how sorry I am, or that I dream about (Vanessa) at night,” she said. “A part of me died with her. I think about her everyday.”
Jensen lives with the knowledge that Vanessa’s son is growing up without his mother, and that Vanessa’s parents spend every day without their daughter.
Jensen, who once worked in nursing, has had trouble finding jobs because people don’t want to hire a felon. She lost all her friends. She has remarried but said her husband married her baggage as well.
She said some days it’s hard to just get out of bed. Some days, she said, she sees Vanessa’s face everywhere.
“I write letters to Vanessa sometimes,” Jensen said tearfully. “The letters say, ‘I’m sorry.’ But sorry is only a word. I need to prove that I’m sorry.”
As painful as holding on to that experience is, Jensen said it has been her saving grace. She thinks that if she and Vanessa had both walked away from that wreck, nothing in her own life would have changed. Now, she is clean and sober. She has held a job for two years. She also works as an offender with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, speaking at Victim Impact Panels about the judicial and emotional costs of her crime.
Since being released from prison, Jensen challenges teenagers everywhere she goes about their risky behavior. She asks: “How much do you value life?” She means someone else’s life, someone like Vanessa. She encourages young people to stop for a second and question what they are getting ready to do. She asks teens to look into the future and question whether they would want their children to engage in such behavior.
And finally, Jensen hopes teenagers will push beyond the excuse of blaming others for their bad decisions. Jensen said every time she got high, she knew it was wrong. She refuses to blame anyone for getting behind the wheel that fateful day, except herself.
“It’s not the parents, it all boils down to the children,” she said. “Everybody has a choice.”


Reminder
“I don’t think I’ll ever get over it, and part of me doesn’t want to. I need that constant reminder. I’d like to think that Vanessa would be proud of what I’ve done and become now. I am Heather Jensen. I know who I am, and I’m not that same girl anymore.”

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