Boy’s family upbraids driver in DUI fatality
Family of dead boy confronts Houston driver who killed 2 in 1 day
The family of a 6-year-old boy killed in a 2015 crash tearfully castigates the driver in court for driving under the influence of prescription drugs.
The family of a 6-year-old boy killed in a 2015 crash tearfully castigated the driver Wednesday for driving under the influence of prescription drugs.
An uncle and the teenage brother of young Joshua Medrano faced Blaine Boudreaux, 38, in the courtroom a day after he was sentenced to 80 years in prison on a felony murder conviction for two fatal crashes, miles apart, on the same day in 2015.
“At the end of the day, you’ll be able to see your kid,” Joshua’s brother, Anthony Medrano, 17, told Boudreaux from the witness stand in a Harris County courtroom as their mother stood with him. “Do you know where we have to go to see our dead kid?”
Medrano’s uncle, Carlos Villareal, choked back tears as he remembered the boy.
“Even though he was only 6 years old, he planted a beautiful seed of memories,” Villareal told Boudreaux. “And judging by the emotions of your family yesterday, we’re not the only ones you hurt that day.”
The family comments were presented as victim impact statements, which offer family members a chance to speak directly to a defendant after he or she has been convicted. It happened after Boudreaux officially was sentenced by state District Judge Robert Johnson, capping the end of week-and-a-halflong trial.
Boudreaux was involved in four wrecks, two of which were fatal, over the course of threeand-a-half hours on April 26, 2015, a Sunday afternoon.
He tested positive for Xanax after the wreck that killed Joshua Medrano, which occurred just minutes after a hit-and-run where he killed 61-year-old Leonard Batiste, a homeless Vietnam-era Air Force veteran.
Defense attorneys Billy Skinner and Matt Deluca argued that the prosecutors did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Boudreaux was committing a hit-and-run when he ran a stoplight and caused the wreck that killed Medrano.
After the verdict, Skinner said Boudreaux is remorseful, but has had problems dealing with the reality that he killed two people and that he will not be there for his own young son,
who was born premature and has struggled to stay alive.
“I believe he feels remorse, and he’s expressed that to me and members of his family,” Skinner said. “He both caused the loss of two lives and he’s losing his son, so it’s a difficult set of emotions to process.”
Jurors heard evidence of a string of wrecks that began about 3 p.m. that day when he rear-ended two people near the Texas Medical Center and was given a traffic ticket by a Houston police officer. About an hour later at Weslayan and Westpark, he rearended a man in a Smart car.
Within 20 minutes of that, Boudreaux drove his black Dodge Ram pickup to Spur 5, near the University of Houston, where he ran over Batiste.
Minutes later, he was going about 60 mph when he ran a stoplight at Lockwood and Interstate 10, colliding with a Honda Civic and killing Medrano, who was in the backseat.
Prosecutors told jurors that police arrested him on the scene for driving while intoxicated and said blood tests showed he had taken the prescription drug Xanax.
Vehicular Crimes Chief Sean Teare and Lynn Nguyen prosecuted the case.
“This little boy deserves justice,” Teare said as he held up a photo of a smiling Joshua during closing arguments.