<img src="http://www.joplinglobeonline.com/images/zope/extra.gif" border=0>‘Epidemic proportions’: Sarcoxie family’s loss raises questions about persistent DWI offenders<font color="#ff0000"> w/ video</font>

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June 27, 2009

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Sat Jun 27, 2009, 09:58 PM CDT

By Greg Grisolano

ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com

SARCOXIE, Mo. — Carol Peck was sitting on the piano bench in her living room when her youngest son, Wayne, came to tell her goodbye. It was around 10 p.m. on July 4, 2003. The family had spent the day together — eating, laughing and shooting fireworks.

“He said, ‘I’m going home now, see you later,’” she said. “Those were his last words, ‘I’m going home now.’ I didn’t know which home he was going to, but we do now.”

Wayne left his farm in rural Sarcoxie on Apple Road, hopped on his motorcycle and headed to his apartment in Joplin. He left his 10-year-old son, Andrew, asleep on the couch with his grandparents. The family had plans to meet up in Joplin for breakfast the next morning.

Peck headed north on his motorcycle toward Blackberry Road. About 15 minutes after he said goodbye to his mother, Wayne was dead. He was 33.

According to the accident report from the Missouri State Highway Patrol, his motorcycle was struck by an eastbound car that crossed the center line after losing control on the curve near Blackberry and Bluff roads. The impact severed Peck’s left leg. Trauma and blood loss are the most likely causes of death.

When Highway Patrolman Les Wilson arrived on scene about 10 minutes after the collision, the driver of the car, Jason Garrison, then 24, was nowhere to be found.

Wilson’s crash report indicates alcohol and inattentive driving were probable factors in Garrison’s driving.

Police later issued an arrest warrant for Garrison. A probable-cause statement filed in connection with the crash stated that Garrison fled the scene of the accident on foot. He made his way to an adult bookstore in Sarcoxie and had a friend pick him up around 2 a.m.

Wilson completed his investigation of the crash scene, and went to notify Wayne’s family.

“It was the hardest death notification I’ve ever done,” he said. “He was literally with the family up until 15 minutes before he died. He left his son there.”

Peck’s sister, Suzanne Jessip, said the phone call she received from her mother early that morning was the start of the worst day of her life.

“I thought of my parents,” she said. “You’re not supposed to outlive your kids. And I thought really hard about Andrew.”

Jessip said she still struggles with Garrison’s actions.

“The whole concept of him leaving the scene of the accident — the prosecutor knew he was there, the arresting officer knew he was there, and he left for 11 days. He just left,” she said. “I struggle with that. And I just pray to God every day that that man is not on the road and going to kill somebody else.”

Deja vu

Six years later, Garrison was arrested again. In almost the same location. Driving while intoxicated. And once again he tried to flee the scene.

Garrison’s most recent DWI arrest occurred on May 6 in Sarcoxie, not far from where Wayne was killed. A probable-cause statement reports that Garrison was seen by police swerving during a pursuit. He eventually abandoned his vehicle at a residence on Blackberry Drive, and fled on foot before he was apprehended.

“When my wife called me and told me he had been caught in Sarcoxie, just nine miles from where he killed my boy, I could not believe it,” said Bob Peck, Wayne’s father.

Garrison’s case raises the question of what society should do with men and women such as him, persistent offenders who have served their jail time but remain a menace.

“I think there are some changes that need to be made,” Carol Peck said. “There needs to be something that would deter them more. This constantly letting them out to repeat everything that they do ... the young man who killed Wayne is a repeat offender ... I don’t have much to say about the justice system.

“I do want to say that our law enforcement are out there doing their jobs but they have got to have the backup of the court system.”

History of problems

At the time of the wreck in 2003, Garrison’s license was revoked for points violations. His driving record at that time also included one misdemeanor DWI offense and one driving while suspended or revoked offense, both of which occurred in 1999.

Following the collision with Peck, Garrison was on the lam for almost two weeks before authorities caught him. By that time, Wilson said officers were unable to make a case that Garrison had been intoxicated when Peck was killed.

“The way the law is written, and the way it works is you have to be able to prove things,” Wilson said. “We’re innocent until proven guilty. In that particular case, it was just impossible to prove anything other than the fact that he left the scene.”

Even after being sentenced to four years for leaving the scene of the accident, Garrison has remained in trouble.

In 2007, he was convicted of both an excess blood alcohol content (Sept. 9) and driving while intoxicated (Nov. 14), and was sentenced to three years in prison. That sentence was suspended, and Garrison served 120 days in a state institutional treatment program before he was released and placed on five years of supervised probation.

He is now being held in the Jasper County Jail on two separate charges of DWI as an aggravated offender, and another charge of resisting arrest.

The DWI charges occurred in March and May of this past year. Garrison was driving without a license in both cases. The statutory penalty is seven years in prison for each charge.

The resisting-arrest charge stems from Garrison fleeing from Jasper County Sheriff’s deputies attempting to serve an arrest warrant at his home in Carthage on May 25, according to a probable-cause statement filed in Jasper County Circuit Court.

Through his attorney, public defender Erin Graf, Garrison declined to comment for this story.

“My heart was broken when the officers came in to tell me about that,” Carol Peck said of the latest arrest of Garrison. “I had hoped that in that span of six years, he had gotten his act together and found out what life was really about. This is appalling to me.

“He has no fear of getting caught evidently,” said Bob Peck, “because he has been caught three times since he killed Wayne. So to me, it doesn’t show me that he wants to straighten his act up.”

‘Pretty tough’

Bob crafted the white wooden cross that stands near the intersection where his son was killed. Wayne’s nephew, Brandon Jessip, planted cone flowers and other wild flowers around the cross recently.

“It’s been pretty tough,” Bob Peck said. “I try to keep busy. I think of him every day, you know. I hope nobody has to go through what we went through.”

As a result of Wayne’s death, the Pecks have become active in the Jasper County chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Carol Peck said she has since participated in MADD’s Victims Impact Panel, a program in which families impacted by drunk drivers can share their experiences and discuss consequences with offenders.

“This drinking-and-driving is at epidemic proportions,” she said. “When I participated in VIP, we’d look at 80 to 100 people a month who were picked up for DWIs. Most of them can’t seem to get their act together, because they repeatedly come in.”

The family also has been attending Garrison’s court appearances, and both mother and sister wrote letters to Jasper County judges outlining Garrison’s history.

“What I think is a simple truth: If you drink, you should not drive,” Carol Peck said. “It completely changes your life when you have one of your family and one of your children killed. They are not there for Christmas, they’re not there for Easter, they’re not there for Fourth of July anymore.”