Jean Gervais visited her daughter’s grave just prior to speaking at a sentencing hearing for the woman who got drunk and caused the fatal car wreck last year.
“I just promised her I’d do everything in my power to make you understand the gravity of the situation,” the grieving mother said, addressing Coupeville resident Randi Shelton in Island County Superior Court Friday.
Jean Gervais held up photos of her daughter’s school-aged children, Jake and Ellie. She described how the little girl will graduate, get married and have a child of her own without her mother to share the experiences.
“When you look into the eyes of your first grandchild, I want you to think of Ellie Boone,” she enjoined the defendant.
Shelton quietly cried through much of the hearing. The 36-year-old woman pleaded guilty in May to vehicular homicide in the death of Karen Gervais-Boone, a Greenbank resident and a well-known school advocate.
After listening to lengthy comments and reading numerous letters from the community, Judge Alan Hancock sentenced Shelton to prison for seven years and three months, the maximum term allowed by law.
Shelton’s two previous DUI convictions in Oregon added a mandatory four years to the prison term.
“She chose to get dead drunk and get behind the wheel of her vehicle. She killed Mrs. Gervais in the prime of her life…” the judge said. “Anything less than the maximum penalty would be unjust.”
A sentencing memorandum by Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks, who asked for the maximum term, described the horrific accident that occurred Jan. 22, 2007. Shelton drank “an immense amount of alcohol,” he wrote, and drove her Dodge Durango south on Highway 525, toward Freeland. Numerous drivers called 911 to warn of an erratically-driven SUV illegally passing cars.
Gervais-Boone was on her way home after a day of working on the mainland. She was less than five miles from her home when Shelton wandered into her lane and struck her van head-on.
“Neither the seatbelt nor airbag saved her from a mercifully instant death,” Banks wrote. “Ms. Gervais-Boone’s lifeless body was partially ejected through the rear side window of the minivan, where she remained until the coroner rescued her from that indignity later that night.”
Shelton’s blood-alcohol content was tested at more than twice the legal limit after the accident. She was badly injured and remains “100 percent disabled,” according to her attorney, Craig Platt of Coupeville.
Jean Gervais, a Freeland resident, spoke passionately, and sometimes angrily, about the terrible loss of her daughter. She pointed out that Karen Gervais-Boone played a key role in the successful effort to pass a bond to build a new school in Coupeville, where Shelton lives with her two children.
“Isn’t it ironic that your children get to go to a state-of-the-art high school that is there in large part because of the efforts of Karen Gervais?” Jean Gervais said. “Isn’t that ironic?”
Jim Gervais, Jean’s husband and Karen’s father, spoke briefly about his deep heartache. He’s known for his work to establish a Whidbey Island chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving since his daughter’s death.
Gervais-Boone’s husband, Dr. John Boone, choked up during his brief comments. He said Shelton should get the maximum sentence.
“Her actions over the last year and a half show me she has no remorse,” he said, adding that she tried “every legal trick in the book.”
Platt defended Shelton, explaining that evidentiary issues beyond her control caused the long delay in the resolution of the case. Also, she will be away from her children for years.
“She was grasping at anything to have extra time with her children,” he said.
The attorney said Shelton decided to plead guilty to spare Gervais-Boone’s family from having to endure a trial.
Several others also spoke in Shelton’s defense. Her sister said Shelton’s family should be blamed since they didn’t stop her from drinking and driving. She said Shelton is not a murderer.
“She is a sweet, caring, loving person who would do anything for anyone,” she said, “and she’s never said a bad word about anyone.”
The woman also pointed out, without any sense of irony, that Shelton’s own husband was killed by a drunk driver when their children were small, sending her on a downward spiral of alcoholism.
Before she was sentenced, Shelton explained that she plans to go into the ministry and teach others about the perils of impaired driving. But mostly, she said she was sorry.
“I know how much pain this has caused my children and I can only imagine what hers are going through,” she said.
