Widow to meth driver: ‘You might as well have ripped my heart out’
Craig Searle’s widow had a two-word message to the man who killed her husband in a fiery crash. Mike Mather reports.
‘‘You won’t be forgiven . . . There will be a day of reckoning, and you will pay for what you have done to my brother Craig.’’
Searle’s sister
A methamphetamine-addled Waikato man who smashed his ute head-on into a truck, causing it to crash off the road and burst into flames – killing the driver – had been using the drug daily.
Waikato man Karl Dee McQuillan was sentenced to 12 months of home detention, after earlier pleading guilty to charges of driving under the influence of a drug causing death, possession of methamphetamine, possession of MDMA, and unlawful possession of ammunition and explosives.
Prior to his sentencing in the Hamilton District Court yesterday afternoon, the family of this victim, truck driver Craig Searle, spoke to the court of their anguish over the 2020 rural Waikato crash.
‘‘You might as well have ripped my heart out with your bare hands,’’ his widow, Eileen Searle, told McQuillan.
She said she had been forced to change jobs, because she could not bear to travel over the same stretch of road every day.
‘‘What is so bad in your life that you chose to take drugs? Whatever it is you have chosen to escape, it has found you.
‘‘F... you. If I have to live with it, so do you.’’ Searle’s daughter Lisa Smith said the amount of time it had taken for McQuillan to plead guilty was an ‘‘insult’’ to her father.
‘‘This was no accident. You chose to get behind the wheel with drugs in your system’’.
In her statement, Searle’s sister said McQuillan ‘‘had ruined everything’’.
‘‘They told us it was a quick death, but those last few minutes would have been terrifying and will haunt all of us for the rest of our lives.
‘‘You won’t be forgiven . . . There will be a day of reckoning, and you will pay for what you have done to my brother Craig.’’
A pre-sentence report found McQuillan had been using methamphetamine on a daily or near-daily basis in the weeks and months before the crash, ‘‘for increased stamina while hunting’’.
Judge Phillip Crayton also disqualified McQuillan from driving for two years, and to pay out his offer of $25,000 in reparation to Searle’s family.
This did not preclude them seeking further recompense through a civil action, he noted.
Prosecutor Amy Alcock also noted that in March and July this year, while on bail, McQuillan was twice caught driving over the speed limit – the second time in a car that was not warranted or registered.
‘‘That is evidence of your poor judgment,’’ Crayton said during sentencing.
‘‘[McQuillan] can’t undo this tragedy. All he can do is make himself better and contribute to society as best he can.’’
Since the crash, McQuillan had attended an intensive drug course at the Hanmer Clinic, and another programme at the Capri Sanctuary. He had been regularly tested for drugs and the results were clean.
‘‘I’m satisfied you have engaged meaningfully in drug rehabilitation . . . to address the cause of this offending,’’ the judge said.
As the agreed summary of facts in the case reveals, Searle was driving a heavy truck and trailer transporting farm machinery northward on State Highway 27, through the Waikato settlement of Waharoa, about 6.30am on Friday, June 26, 2020. He was doing about 65kph and safely travelling in the correct lane.
Coming the other way was McQuillan, who was behind the wheel of a Toyota Hilux, doing about 68kph.
For reasons that are unclear, McQuillan failed to negotiate a bend in the road and crossed the centre line, moving directly in the path of Searle’s truck in the northbound lane.
Searle had no time to avoid the smash and, as the summary puts it, the left front of the truck collided heavily with the left front of the ute. Searle lost control and the truck and trailer smashed through the roadside safety barrier, and plummeted down over a railway overbridge. The front section of the truck came down onto the railway line where it caught fire.
Searle died at the scene, while McQuillan suffered injuries to his abdomen and head and was transported to Waikato Hospital by rescue helicopter. A blood sample taken seven hours later was found to contain 0.43 milligrams of methamphetamine per litre of blood.