In The NewsCouple Hopes To Help Change Attitudes On Teen Drinking
Originally printed in The Westerly Sun
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Author: Ellyn Moran SantiagoSpecial to The Sun
WESTERLY - The 16-year-old Mystic teenager drank so much that January night in 2007 that his blood alcohol level, at .12, was far above the legal limit of .08 for an adult, and six times the limit for a teen driver; .02.
The youth had been at an underage drinking party in his neighborhood - the 17-year-old host's parents were not home - where some 50 high school-aged kids were downing beers and playing drinking games.
Shortly before 10 p.m. that night, the boy's father sent him a text message: "If you are over there you need to leave, nothing good will come of it."
His son replied with a simple: "K," short for OK.
But there were no subsequent text messages from the father.
At around 1 a.m., according to police, the teen got behind the wheel of his car - driving under a restricted, just-issued driver's license - with a friend from the party as his passenger. They headed to McDonald's for burgers. After leaving the Groton fast food restaurant, the intoxicated youth - a Fitch High School student athlete - was traveling at speeds police found were in the range of around 90 to 100 mph along a winding Groton roadway. On the same road, traveling at around 50 mph in the opposite direction, was an Audi carrying two men en route to their homes and families after a night shift as Foxwoods Resort Casino butlers.
They never made it.
The deadly crash was sudden and violent. When police arrived, according to a report, all they could see was the teen's car ablaze - his lifeless body trapped inside. His passenger, injured but alive, was on the side of the road. It wasn't until the fire had been doused did police realize there was another car involved, having been obscured by the inferno. Police would find Wayne Lecardo, 33, of Groton Long Point, and John Geise III, 52, of Mystic, in the mangled car. Both men were dead.
A police investigation took many, many months to complete and in the end, the only person to face any charges was the 17-year-old teen who threw the underage drinking party; he paid a nominal fine.
Three lives lost, two victims of a drunk driver, and countless lives shattered the direct result of an underage drinking party.
Two of the people whose lives have been irreparably changed are Lecardo's parents, Janice Ricker and Ken Lesnick. The couple, originally from Stratford, Conn., now call Westerly home. They recently purchased a home in a new development behind Tower Street School. It's a quiet place with friendly neighbors. But the pain they suffer, and their omnipresent grief, is palpable. They miss their son.
"Wayne was a good person with a big heart. He touched the lives of everyone he encountered. He was an amazing spirit. As his mother, I could not have asked for a better son, he was kind, caring, and compassionate and he was the light of my life," Ricker said. "His spirit will live on in me until we are together again."
Lecardo's parents cannot bear, they say, to see another family suffer as they have. Since the crash, they have written letters to the media, attended Mother's Against Drunk Driving (MADD) meetings and worked tirelessly in an effort to advocate for change. They are committed. "Something has got to change," Ken Lesnick said.
The couple recently joined the Westerly Substance Abuse Task Force, coming on board just as the non-profit prevention organization was preparing to present its proposed Social Host Liability Ordinance, which will be the subject of a public hearing Monday, at 7 p.m. before the Westerly Town Council. The municipal ordinance will support existing state law, but provides its own immediate punishment for parents and others who allow underage drinking gatherings on their private property with fines that increase significantly for repeat offenders.
"The Social Host Liability ordinance can be a powerful deterrent and, we believe, another weapon needed to continue the fight against underage drinking and the very sad and all-too-common misguided parental notions that condone teen drinking as some kind of right-of-passage. It has to stop," said WSATF coordinator Mary Lou Serra.
At the public hearing on the proposed ordinance, Lesnick will explain to the Town Council why a "law of this kind, that holds parents responsible, might save someone's life." He said he will be "speaking from [his] heart."
"It may be hard for some people to hear, but I have to say it: 'Parents, you are responsible for your children until they are 18. Don't be their friend, be their parent.' That's my message."
In a sad and cruel irony, Janice Ricker said her son had told her, "a month before his death that he could not wait to switch over to the day shift because he was fearful of driving home due to so many drunk drivers on the road after midnight. He was to have switched over a week after his death."
Ellyn Moran Santiago is a former Sun reporter now serving as media representative for the Westerly Substance Abuse Task Force.