‘CHOICES’
Jennifer Neville-Lake, the mother of three children killed by a drunk driver, made a tearful plea for people to consider the consequences of drinking and driving after the man responsible for the crash was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday.
The children died — along with Neville-Lake’s father, Gary Neville — when the family minivan they were travelling in was hit by an SUV driven by Marco Muzzo last September.
Speaking outside the Newmarket courthouse, Neville-Lake showed reporters a book labelled “My consequences” that she had filled with photos of her children Daniel, 9, Harrison, 5, and Milly, 2.
“This was a choice,” she said, holding back tears.
“Choices are actions that have consequences, and so I’d like to show you this.”
As she turned each page, NevilleLake told the story of all the choices she or others had made that led to the deaths of children. My dad’s choice
“It starts off with my dad’s choice. He chose to marry my mother.” My dad’s actions
“He chose the three of us, he chose to have my brother, my sister and myself.” My choice
“Was Edward. We chose to get married on Oct. 2, 2005, which if you do the math, by our 10th wedding anniversary Marco Muzzo had already killed our family at our 10-year mark.” My actions
“My three kids. This is a photo, the last photo we took, of the car we traded in that we had for nine years, that we traded in for the van that they were killed in the night that they were killed.” Drunk driver Marco Muzzo’s actions
Neville-Lake replaced letters in Muzzo’s name with symbols.
“I really don’t want to say his name if I don’t have to,” she said taking a deep breath.
“The other part with the choice, of the actions, is there’s always a consequence,” she said, holding up a picture of the destroyed car members of her family were killed in. My consequences
“These were my consequence,” she said, fighting back sobs as she showed the media a close-up picture of her two children, Milly and Harrison, holding hands in the hospital.
“My children never took a bad picture, even when they were dying.”
On the next page was a picture of her children’s three urns.
“So just please keep in mind, when you choose to drink and drive, you’re choosing to kill someone else’s babies, like mine were killed. Like all of mine were killed, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon just after 4 o’clock.’