Driver gets 13 years for two deaths





On Nov. 19, 2006, Williams swerved into the path of Lavender’s oncoming pick-up on Highway 80.

Officers described a tragic scene in which a bystander was attempting to pull Lavender’s body from his burning truck.

Though Williams was nowhere to be found, his first cousin, Parris, died at the scene and another cousin, Marcus Rogers, was injured.

Hours later, state troopers found Williams at his home about five miles away. In the original reports, officers noted Williams behaved as if “impaired” and told them he swerved to miss a cow but hit something else. He didn’t know what he’d struck but said he got scared and walked home after he realized his cousin was unresponsive.

The driver who turned his back on a fiery wreck and the two men who died in it was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Last Thursday, Elliot John Williams, 32, raised his right hand before Superior Court Judge Carl C. Brown and pleaded guilty to all five charges connected to the November 2006 wreck that killed John “Owen” Lavender, 27, and David Anderson Parris, 21. Parris was a passenger in the Suburban Williams was driving.

Williams was indicted on two felony counts of vehicular homicide last January but those charges were plea-bargained down to misdemeanors after drug and alcohol tests couldn’t conclusively prove he was impaired at the time of the accident.

“He couldn’t be found for a number of hours after the wreck,” Assistant District Attorney Adam King argued, pointing out that Williams’ blood wasn’t drawn for six or seven hours after he fled the deadly accident.

King indicated those “incognito” hours were the thorn in the side of a clear cut prosecution for the original charges. Although drug tests proved Williams smoked marijuana within 12 to 36 hours of having his blood drawn, that timeline couldn’t be pinned in close proximity to the fatal collision. His alcohol screening was negative.

Unhappy with the lessened charges, 11 of the late Lavender’s family members approached the bench and urged Judge Brown to impose the maximum sentence.

They told the judge how Lavender survived a rare form of cancer and had married his sweetheart Jamie just months before the wreck. They said he was driving to his new home, where Jamie waited, when Williams veered across the highway and destroyed the young couple’s dreams.

“Mr. Williams has no remorse, no respect for me or my family … or the loss he’s caused his own family,” Lavender’s widow said, describing the offender’s confidence and smile during his bond hearing. “Our sentence has been life without Owen, and nothing is going to reverse that. My plea is that Owen’s life be respected.”

The victim’s sister, Patricia, told the judge she’d never understand how Williams could knowingly walk away from the wreckage. “I still wonder what he was trying to hide when he left the scene … when so many needed help,” she said.

“My brother was so badly burned we would never be able to see him again. (Parris) was left to suffer and die on the side of the road.”

A number of Williams’ family members spoke on his behalf, including the mother of the late Parris who said Williams was consumed by remorse. “We are truly sorry for your loss,” she said to the Lavender family across the court- room. “I do miss my son but I have a heart of forgiveness.”

Williams’ wife, an elementary school teacher, told Judge Brown her husband “couldn’t live with himself” and was put on suicide watch in the months that followed the wreck. She asked the judge to take pity on her husband and their new baby, which had been named for the late Parris.

“I can’t imagine as a wife what you must be going through,” she said to Jamie Lavender. “All I can do is give you my deepest sorrow and ask that you don’t take my son’s father away.”

Judge Brown called the case one in which “everybody loses” and sentenced Williams to the maximum allowed under Georgia law. He told both families no words or decisions rendered by the court could lessen their pain and that it was “best to resort to faith.”

Williams was sentenced to five years in prison for each of two felony counts of failure to stop at or return to the scene of an accident; 12 months for each of two misdemeanor vehicular homicide charges; and another 12 months for driving on the wrong side of the roadway.


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