Late-night ride ends badly for all involved
2 riders hurt; 2 drivers in trouble
While their parents slept, three East Memphis high school girls embarked on a night of fun and rebellion that landed one in handcuffs, one in a wheelchair and one in a coma.
One of the teens, a White Station High School sophomore, told her parents she was headed out in her father’s white 2001 Toyota Sienna to a sleepover at the home of her best friend and classmate, Amelia Jane Lovel.
But Amelia sneaked out of her house and into the minivan’s front passenger seat as her parents — an engineer and a University of Memphis instructor — slept. At about 1 a.m. that Sunday, April 28, the two picked up another pal, a sophomore at St. Mary’s Episcopal School, who hopped in the back.
The teen driver would later admit to police that she sipped some rum and smoked marijuana prior to driving, according to police reports.
The friends, who daydreamed about one day going to college together in California, rode around singing songs they made up to include their names. They were cruising through a green light at the intersection of North McLean Boulevard and Vollintine Avenue at about 2:30 a.m. when a black, 2004 Dodge Ram slammed in to the passenger side of the minivan.
Emergency personnel found the teen driver still behind the wheel, beside her unconscious and critically injured best friend. The St. Mary’s student, flung to the minivan’s rear storage area, suffered severe internal injuries.
Police used the teen driver’s cellphone, which they found under Amelia, to call the Lovels, jolting the parents awake at 3:04 a.m.
Gerald Lovel darted to his 20-year-old daughter’s room, assuming she was the one injured in a wreck. But she was sleeping. That’s when he discovered Amelia was gone.
He rushed to the accident site, about a half-mile from home, as an ambulance was pulling off. A police officer blocked him from approaching the wreckage, saying the youngest of his four daughters was “touch and go.”
Amelia suffered a severe brain injury when the impact thrust her head through the passenger side window and snapped it back like a whip. Her heart was still beating, but she wasn’t breathing, her father said.
Amelia was resuscitated at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, but remains in a coma eight weeks later.
The backseat passenger suffered a skull fracture and collapsed lung, internal bruising, three broken ribs and vertebrae, a bilateral pelvic break and fractured sacrum, her mother said.
The young driver told police she had been cautious — staying within the 35 mph speed limit and cruising through a green light when the truck seemed to come out of nowhere, according to the police report. Inside the minivan, police found an opened bottle of Bacardi rum, marijuana and a glass pipe.
Police reports quote the girl saying she had a sip, or a couple of sips, from a Coke bottle with rum mixed in and “several puffs” on a marijuana pipe. (The Commercial Appeal does not name juvenile offenders who haven’t been transferred to adult court, unless they are charged with murder, or face charges in exceptionally violent rape and assault cases.)
The truck’s driver, Cedric Bailey, 47, tried to leave the area, but his truck was inoperable, witnesses told police. The officer who found him behind the wheel noticed his “watery, glassy eyes” and strong odor of alcohol, according to the affidavit.
Bailey admitted “consuming alcoholic drinks” at a North Memphis nightclub, less than four miles from the crash site, before the collision, police allege in reports. Officers found two empty 24-ounce Bud Light cans under his passenger seat.
Police arrested both drivers for driving under the influence, vehicular assault and other charges, and took blood samples.
Now the Lovels are keeping a bedside vigil.
At the time of the wreck, Gerald Lovel had been two days away from registering Amelia for college math and English classes at the University of Memphis, so she could complete one year’s worth of college credits by the time she graduated from high school in 2015.
Five days after the crash, Amelia, the first-chair clarinet in her high school’s band, was supposed to play a solo part during the spring concert. Her bandmates left her
It’s very difficult for me to see (the teen driver) whole when my child is not.”
Lorraine Meiners-Lovel, Amelia’s mother
chair empty, placing flowers in her seat.
Amelia also played piano in the school’s wind ensemble and enjoyed sports. She tutored other students in math and chemistry.
“She was, is, a wonderfully talented person,” said her mother, Lorraine Meiners-Lovel, senior projects coordinator at University of Memphis’ University College.
A large get-well banner from Amelia’s bandmates was displayed in her hospital room, along with a few of her watercolor paintings. One of Amelia’s sisters hung strings of brightly colored butterflies from the ceiling to give her something cheerful to see when she came out of her coma. But that hasn’t happened.
Meanwhile, the criminal cases against the two drivers remain in the beginning stages.
Gerald Lovel said he feels confident the teen wasn’t drunk or speeding and had the right-of-way.
“My daughter said she was one of the best drivers she ever rode with,” he said.
He said there should be consequences for the wreck, but views the vehicular assault charge — drunk driving that causes serious bodily injury — against the teen driver as “a shame.”
“My daughter was in that vehicle and my daughter participated in everything that (the teen driver) participated in, in that car, and she knew better,” Lovel, 62, said.
“I do not consider that (the teen driver) is at greater fault.”
For now, both the teen and Bailey are charged with DUI, reckless driving and public intoxication, which are misdemeanors, as well as vehicular assault, which is a felony in the adult system, court records show. The teen also is charged with open-container law violation, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to the affidavit.
“Why couldn’t they have done this in our basements or in an alley?” Gerald Lovel said.
“The problem is when things that would be normal explorations in other societies, drinking a beer or smoking a joint, have such stringent penalties in our laws. That’s why they happen in cars where they are at greatest risk.”
Amelia’s mother, who is also a University of Memphis instructor of academic research and writing, said she still struggles with an accident that was avoidable.
“I can’t say she didn’t contribute to it, but I’d say her level of responsibility is different than the other driver,” she said of her daughter’s best friend. “One of the reasons we tell kids not to be out in the middle of the night is that people drive drunk in the middle of the night.”
The Lovels have met with the other two teens and their families, but for Amelia’s mother the visits are tense.
“I don’t doubt that they feel terrible,” she said. “But it’s very difficult for me to see (the teen driver) whole when my child is not.”
Both drivers have retained private attorneys, who say they have yet to learn the results of blood-alcohol tests or investigators’ conclusions on whether the drivers were speeding and who is to blame for the collision.
Bailey, free after posting a $30,000 bond, is due in court Monday for a routine pretrial hearing. A court date has not yet been set for the teen driver, free on a signature bond. She is with her family in Ireland, her father’s native country.
Bailey did not return calls seeking comment. His attorney, Charles Waldman, said prosecutors don’t have a strong case against his client. With both drivers charged with drunk driving, he said he expected both would refuse to testify against one another by asserting their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and avoid possible self-incrimination.
“From a legal point of view, the interesting thing is how would the state be able to prove its case?” Waldman said.
“I do hope we can settle it. I don’t see a felony here at all.
“If the drivers of both vehicles are DUI, then where should the responsibility fall? With the person driving the victim into the bad situation or the other driver?”
The teen’s attorney, Lanier Fogg, said his client “is absolutely devastated by what has occurred,” but he doesn’t believe the crash was her fault.
He pointed to the police report. “What’s important is what is not there — statements that there was an odor of intoxicants, that she was unsteady on her feet, that her eyes were glazed.”
The St. Mary’s student, who was released from the hospital after 11 nights, continues to improve.
She is now on a walker and crutches, but when she returned to Le Bonheur June 6 to visit Amelia, she was in a wheelchair. She gently stroked her friend’s arm and talked to her.
From time to time, Gerald Lovel walked over to his daughter’s bedside and kissed her cheek or held her hand. He and his wife and their three older daughters, ages 20, 23, and 26, have taken turns helping nurses care for Amelia.
“Amelia Jane Lovel was never the touchy-feely kind of child,” her father wrote on a May 14 Facebook post. “I have probably touched this child more in the past 14 days than in the previous 14 years put together.”
On June 12, she was transferred to Shepherd Center, an Atlanta hospital specializing in spinal cord and brain injuries.
Gerald Lovel explained to his Facebook followers that the damage to his daughter occurred “deep within the brain” and “she will remain under care for the foreseeable future.”
He and his wife continue to read and talk to their youngest child and play classical music she used to play on the clarinet or piano.
Her father said, “We hope somewhere it will trigger something that will cause her to want to come back.”