Imagine returning from a wonderful family reunion weekend in Louisiana, with your mom driving your three children in the car ahead of yours. Then try to imagine all four in the first car being killed instantly, right before your eyes, when a drunk driver plows his truck head-on into the family’s car.

 

Grandmother of three, mother of four, Althea Crapps

That is what Cassie Crapps Acker, 26, has had to cope with since the February 6, 2008 deaths of her mother, Althea Crapps, 50, her daughter Jada, 9, and her sons Hunter, 6, and Kaden, 4. “There have been days when just choosing to breathe has been almost more than I was able to bear,” she says.

 

She wonders now if she is a mother any more, or a former mother. She’s not sure what to say when people ask if she has any children. “I don’t know what to tell them…If I don’t tell them about my children, I feel like I am denying them,” she said in her victim impact statement in court. “But if I do, it’s like the hurt starts all over again. What am I supposed to say?”

 

The family had to choose four caskets for one funeral. They had to select four sets of clothes for burying their four family members. “Since I knew my children would never grow up, I decided to bury them in clothes that would represent what they wanted to be when they were older,” Cassie says. Hunter wanted to be a fireman, so the local fire department helped adorn a yellow rain slicker with donated patches and created a name patch. Firefighters served as pallbearers.

 

4-yr-old Kaden Crapps.

Younger son, Kaden, was dressed as a cowboy, while big sister Jada wore “lots of bling” with a very girlish outfit. In a school assembly the Friday before her death, she had been especially proud to receive a “Terrific Kid” Award. “My mom was an outstanding woman,” says Cassie, “and my kids were growing up in her direction. She would give you the shirt off her back. I had to put her obituary in five different papers to be sure all her friends knew.”

 

After stopping for gas in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, en route to their Lead Hill home, the Arkansas family had just decided to change places, so the children would all be riding with their grandmother. They moved the youngest grandchild, Kaden, from the second to the front car, despite his cries to stay with his mother. “Within what seemed like just a split second, the unbelievable happened,” Cassie says.

 

6-year-old Hunter Crapps

Driving the wrong way, without headlights, on an Arkansas interstate, after celebrating Mardi Gras with friends at Rivermarket in Little Rock, the 28-year-old repeat offender crashed into the car driven by Cassie’s mother. His blood alcohol content (BAC) measured .19 two hours after the crash. He was sentenced in late October 2008 to 32 years in prison, convicted of four counts of negligent homicide and serving four consecutive eight-year sentences. He had been held on $200,000 bail since the drunk driving crash.

 

The offender had previously pleaded guilty to a DWI in November 2003, as well as another prior conviction. He accepted the 2003 misdemeanor first-offense charge, an $800 fine, and an order to attend an alcohol-abuse program, in exchange for prosecutors dropping misdemeanor charges of driving with a suspended or revoked license and failure to yield. The earlier conviction no longer shows on his record, since Arkansas law deletes charges after five years.

 

9-yr.-old Jada Crapps

MADD Arkansas Executive Director Teresa Belew has served as a victim advocate for Cassie Crapps throughout this ordeal. MADD helped Cassie prepare her victim impact statement, her victim reparation applications and sat with her through the three, very long, emotional days in court. “The state troopers had recorded everything on the scene,” Belew says, “so Cassie had to listen to and relive the horribly heartbreaking aftermath of the crash scene.”

 

Cassie says MADD was “incredible – really, really great. Their support and love, and just being there through the whole trial – none of us wanted to be there.” Her job in the accounting department of a local ministry, her sisters (including one who just moved to Arkansas with her four children to be closer), and her belief system keep Cassie going.

 

“It’s so important to stay involved with other children if one or more of yours has died,” Cassie says. Her advice to other mothers in that situation: “As hard as it is, and it’s really hard, keep up the daily routine and focus on other children. The more you avoid them, the more you’ll lose your grip on being able to cope.”

 

MADD Arkansas is currently working with legislators to persuade Arkansas to adopt mandatory ignition interlock laws for all convictions, including first-time offenders. If the law had been enacted before the Crapps’ crash, the device would prevent his truck from starting in the future if the driver’s BAC measured above a detectable level of alcohol.

 

Fourteen states now enforce laws mandating that a certain class of first-offenders use an interlock. An interlock bill will be introduced in Arkansas in the coming weeks, as the new legislative session is getting underway.