Like most drunk drivers, Matthew Paul Croley isn’t an evil guy. He doesn’t have a rap sheet a mile long. He would help a friend if he could, and he did not set out to hurt anyone.
Thursday, he told jurors in his wanton murder trial that he regrets what he did. The prosecutor doesn’t doubt that he was sincere. I don’t doubt that he was sincere either.
This doesn’t change the fact that if not for Croley’s actions and a “litany” of bad decisions, as the prosecutor Ronnie Bowling put it, then young Patrick Flores would likely still be alive today.
On Jan. 31, 2024, Croley killed the two-year-old Flores on I-75 in Whitley County shortly before midnight.
Two months after the birth of his daughter and a few months after a DUI conviction, Croley was trying to be “new Matt,” his defense attorney, Jeremy Croley, told the jury.
Nevertheless, he went out drinking with friends anyway on the night of Jan. 31. Somebody else was supposed to be the designated driver, but they ended up drinking anyway. Croley decided to get behind the wheel of the car.
There were just two problems. First, Croley’s license had been suspended for drunk driving just a few months earlier. Second and more importantly, Croley had been drinking too.
Four hours after the crash, his blood alcohol level was still in excess of the legal limit. The prosecutor told jurors during his closing argument that Croley had a blood alcohol level at least twice the legal limit at the time of the crash and that Croley was traveling at least 94 miles per hour.
The crash happened when, according to Bowling, Croley tried to “shoot the gap” between a semi and a passenger car clipping the back end of the car and causing the crash that killed Patrick Flores.
The crash seriously injured and forever changed the life of his mother, Alexis Flores, too. She spent nine days in ICU, had to have five surgeries and has had and possibly forever will have mental health issues due to the Croley’s decisions that day that claimed the life of her son.
When it comes to drunk driving fatalities, there are a few constants that you will almost always see.
The first is that the person killed by the drunk driver is usually just an innocent bystander minding their own business.
The second is that the drunk driver almost never gets hurt. (One of life’s cruel ironies.)
The third is that the drunk driver almost never sets out to hurt someone, not that this makes things any easier for the families of their victims.
Let me offer up some examples of the three most egregious cases of drunk driving cases that I have ever covered.
On Aug. 20, 2001, Lisa Rains was a 28-year-old Oak Grove Elementary School teacher, who had recently found out that she was pregnant.
It should have been a jubilant time for her.
Then tragedy struck.
Lester Cook was driving drunk and too fast when he struck a guard rail, lost control of his Corvette, and ran over Rains, who was looking at flowers in her front yard. His estimated blood alcohol level at the time of the crash was about twice the legal limit.
The accident happened less than half a mile from Cook’s home, and on the same road, where Cook was driving drunk nearly 32 years earlier and ran over a young boy, killing him.
In 2007, Raymond Garner, whose license had recently been suspended for drunk driving, was barreling up I-75 in his pick-up truck hauling a rickety old trailer with all his worldly belongings as he was moving from Tennessee to Kentucky. Black box data from the truck showed he had it floored when he lost control, crossed into the median and went airborne striking two vehicles.
In one vehicle, the impact killed a pregnant 25-year-old woman named Cindy Haas, and her unborn child, whom she planned to name Nathan. In another vehicle, it decapitated eight-year-old Gus Pontikis. At the time of the crash, Garner had a blood alcohol level nearly three times the legal limit.
The case was so tragic that the accident reconstructionist broke down on the witness stand crying as he testified during the trial.
On April 13, 2016, Adam Childress had been drinking when he drove his vehicle and ran over and killed Richard Perkins, who was walking his dog along a Williamsburg sidewalk. Childress kept going and didn’t stop until he passed out and wrecked a second time going off the road and down an embankment. His blood alcohol level was nearly four times the legal limit.
By all accounts, neither Croley, Cook, Garner nor Childress are evil people and were probably decent enough folks when sober.
I suspect that all four would gladly switch places with their victims given the chance.
My point is that drunk drivers almost never set out to hurt, let alone kill anyone, but many times they do.
These deaths don’t have to keep happening.
The next time you are going to get behind the wheel after drinking please think about this column and the innocent lives lost. Then call a taxi, phone a friend, order an Uber, spend the night on your buddy’s couch, or climb into the back seat of your vehicle and sleep it off.
Think about Patrick Flores, Lisa Rains and her unborn child, Cindy Haas and her unborn child, Gus Pontikis and Richard Perkins.
Don’t drive!
Please, please don’t take a chance on driving while intoxicated and doing something that you and others might regret for the rest of your lives.
