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This is my Mother's Victim Impact Statement that
was read at the sentencing for Jonathan Singleton, which also happened to be excatly 1 year to date of Dustin's Death.
This
is very personal, but after many conversations with my Mother, we believe it will help you understand more.
On
December 15, 2002 at 9:00 pm, my world as I knew it ended. I was told my son, Dustin Gunter, 24-years-old, had fought a forty-hour
battle for his life and had lost. Dustin was a healthy guy. For as long as I can remember, he worked out at the gym every
day. In the end, his strength and health was no match for a drunk driver and his truck.
On December 13th, Dustin had
worked late, stopped by the gym to work out, and then came home. He took a shower and was trying to decide if he wanted to
ride to Muskogee with a friend that had called. He told me he had to work early the next morning and it was so late he shouldn’t
go. When he came downstairs, he said he had agreed to go, but he wouldn’t be gone long. Dustin asked me if I had a long
shoe lace, he had broken his and it was too short to tie. I found him one, told him goodnight, and went to bed. I heard
him leave around 11:00 pm.
At 4:00 am, I woke up and looked out my bedroom window to see a Broken Arrow police car
parked in front of my house. I called Dustin’s cell phone, but he didn’t answer. My doorbell rang and my heart stopped.
The officer asked if I was Dustin’s mother, I said yes. He told me there had been an accident and that Dustin and another
person had been taken to two different hospitals. The officer asked if I was alone, I said yes, that my husband was in California.
He said he had a phone number for me to call at St. Francis. I told him I had the number, but he asked me to please write
this number down. On the way to the kitchen, I stopped, turned around, and asked if my son was alive. He said that he didn’t
know, he had received a call from the Coweta Police Department and was told there had been an accident with excessive speed
involved and both boys required medical attention. I took the phone number and told him I was fine, that I was calling my
daughter, Brooke, and her husband, Coby.
I then called Brooke and told her I would call the hospital and for Coby and
her to meet me there. Brooke said not to drive, that they would be right there to pick me up. I called St. Francis, and
after talking to three or four people, a nurse got on and said she didn’t know if this was our son and that they thought this
boy’s name was Jared. So I called the Broken Arrow hospital and no one had made it there yet, but they knew someone from
a wreck in Coweta was on their way. I called back to St. Francis and this time they thought the boys last name was Gunter.
I said, “Listen, I believe my son is very critical. Is this boy?” She waited, and then said yes, that he was Life-Flighted
in and they didn’t have much information because the police were not there yet.
When we arrived at St. Francis, we
still were not sure it was Dusty. We were talking to a nurse when Brooke saw Dustin in a room. The emergency room doctor
started bringing us up to date on his condition. At this point, they were trying to stabilize him. A neurosurgeon was called
in to put a shunt and brain wave monitor in and had just finished. An orthopedic doctor was called in for a left forearm
that was broken and in time would either be cast or operated on, whichever was necessary. A plastic surgeon was on his way
to repair a four to six inch laceration down the right side of Dustin’s jaw. About this time a doctor passed us and went
straight to Dustin. The doctor that was talking to us said the doctor with Dustin was a pulmonary doctor and that a molar
had been knocked out and aspirated into the lung. He told us this had to be removed quickly because Dustin really wouldn’t
do well in surgery right now. They were going to try to pull the tooth through a tube and out through the ventilator because
Dustin was on life support that could not be removed. The first tube was too small. The second size was successful.
After
the tooth was removed, Dustin was moved to another unit where we could stay with him. The plastic surgeon came in to suture
Dustin’s jaw. While he was doing this, a nurse came in and told us the x-ray of Dustin’s lung that they had taken for the
tooth, had showed some type of leakage in the chest. The doctors had been examining the x-ray, and had found that Dustin’s
aorta and heart were torn apart. The nurse told the plastic surgeon to try to stop where he could because Dustin was going
into surgery ASAP.
Because Dustin’s condition was so unusual, St. Francis called a heart surgeon that was off duty
to come in and help the surgeon that was there to evaluate Dustin’s condition. After awhile, the heart surgeon that was called
in came to talk to us. He said he didn’t know how Dustin had lived at the scene of the accident and went over nine hours
before anyone knew. He told us there was not much of a chance Dusty would live through the surgery and even if he did that
his head trauma was so severe, he would still be very critical. We went to the waiting room for a 1 ½ - 2 hour surgery and
were told that they would call us on the phone. The hospital was full of Dustin’s friends and family, all waiting for this
call. The nurse called about 1 ½ hours after they started. She said there had been problems trying to get him stabilized
on the heart/lung machine, they were now starting the surgery, and someone would call. After one hour and twenty minutes,
some doctors came out of surgery, down the hall, and one started toward us. It was the doctor that had been called in. He
told us he wanted to do Dustin’s surgery and called in his team to do it. He said the reason Dusty stayed alive was because
the shock he went into was so fast an so severe that it had formed a blood clot the size of a small fist on top of the aorta,
which is about the size of a banana. He said the aorta and heart tear apart after a high-speed deceleration injury.
After
the problem with the heart/lung machine, things went really well. The doctor said with Dustin’s health he might have a chance.
Dusty was moved to ICU and we were told it was up to him now to recover.
We had been keeping in touch on a cell phone
with my husband, Dewey, and his brother, who was driving Dewey back to Oklahoma. It was 1:00 am California time-there were
no flights available at that time, it would take them around 24 hours to drive straight through.
It was time to try
and find out more details and what had happened to cause the wreck. I had been given a phone number to the officer in charge
at the scene of the accident. The officer’s name was Donnie Krumsiek of the Coweta Police Department. He told me that Dustin
had been a passenger in a four-door Honda Accord driven by Garrett Boulware. They were driving west on 141st St. to bring
Dustin home and had just dropped off Garrett’s fiancé in Coweta, where she and Garrett lived. Johnathan Singleton was driving
a truck going south on 273rd. He had been drinking heavily and took this road often. Johnathan ran the stop sign and broadsided
the Honda on Dustin’s passenger door. On impact, the dash board had folded. Dustin had one leg over the other and the shoe
lace, which I had given to him to put in his shoe right before he left home, had caught under the dash to hold him in the
car. Dustin’s body was hanging out the passenger window. Dustin was 6 foot and weighed 220 lbs, much of which was muscle.
Garrett later told me that he had crawled from his side of the car to Dustin and was yelling for help. He was trying to hold
Dustin up and needed some help doing so. He said Dustin wasn’t breathing, but once he raised him up, Dustin gasped with blood
coming out and started to breath. It was about 2:26 am and the police, ambulance, and life-flight would soon arrive. Long
after this, Johnathan’s Intoxilyzer test would still register almost twice the legal limit.
Dewey called from the hospital
parking lot around 6:00 pm. We told him they were taking Dustin for a CAT scan so we told him the door to go in to try to
see Dusty on the way. He caught up with us and saw Dustin for a second as they quickly wheeled him by. While we waited on
Dusty, we brought Dewey up on the latest of his condition. When Dustin got back around 7:00 pm, the nurse said she would
come get us when the doctor was ready to talk to us. This would be the first meeting to tell us how things were going. I
would run in every once in a while to read the monitors. I knew the swelling of the brain had to stay under twenty and this
had been going well. All of Dustin’s monitor readings had been very good. A couple of times, his blood pressure would go
down, but they would get it right back up.
Around 7:30 pm, I went to the ICU desk to ask if anyone had heard from the
doctor. I was told he had to perform an emergency operation on a gunshot wound to the head, so it would be awhile. About
7:40 pm, I went to check the monitors and asked Dewey if he wanted to go. We were walking down the hall and passed Dusty’s
nurse. I asked if she knew when the doctor was coming. She stopped and asked us what we thought about organ donations.
I froze. I said we were not going to discuss this now. Knowing Dewey was the first transplant patient at St. Francis 17
years earlier, and having worked with organ donations, Dewey and I both knew what she was saying. Dewey said nothing and
I continued to ask about the doctor. The she asked, if we had to make the choice…I stopped her and said “No! We are not
going to talk about this yet.” About that time, Dewey lost it. He had no idea we were to this point. By this time, my daughter
and several of our friends were there. The nurse said “Hypothetically, if you…” I immediately stopped her, told my daughter
to get Dewey out of there, and told the nurse to come with me. I found the supervisor of ICU, told her the story and that
I wanted her to make calls immediately to find out when the doctor would be there, because I now had major problems. At 8:30
pm, the doctor came in to tell us the brain monitor had been broken and Dustin’s brain had continued to swell and had eventually
herniated. So, there was nothing more that he could do. After the episode in the hall about the organ donations, we had
little hope but had not given up. Now it was over. Dewey was taken to a family room. I was told that, due to the nature
of his death, Dustin had to be picked up and taken by the medical examiner. Soon the medical examiner was there and asked
a few questions. I then saw them roll Dusty’s body out under a sheet. I could no longer be with him. I had to try to get
a hold of myself because Dewey was in shock. Coby, my son-in-law, took Dewey home. Brooke and I finished what we could at
the hospital. As we left, the halls were lined with our friends and family. You could have heard a pin drop. When Brooke
and I went home, I walked into the house and stood there thinking, “What do I do now?”
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The next morning, everybody started coming over.
I called Dustin’s best friends together with Brooke to plan Dustin’s funeral. The boys jumped right in at our house talking
phone calls, making arrangements and thanking people who brought food and flowers. From the time Dustin was ready for viewing
(the funeral home was open from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm), one of the boys was always with him. When the funeral home closed, they
all came to our house until late then started over the next day. We buried Dustin on December 19th.
At the funeral,
there were over 400 people. I got up to say a few words, but could only tell some funny stories about Dustin. I could not
say anything that would make me break down. Brooke got up to tell about a trip to Galveston with Dewey and Dustin they had
just taken. Then the boys got up and each said a few words. All of Dustin’s friends got a grave blanket with two D’s made
out of blue carnations. Everyday for months and even now there are always things put on Dustin’s grave. Flowers, notes,
balloons, and a record from a D.J., I guess he knew. During the week of the funeral, I was told so many stories about how
Dustin had helped so many of these friends through the years. I was always proud of him, but I had no idea.
Our family
had to leave for Christmas, we just could not stay. This was the first time I noticed my daughter was left by herself to
take care of us. She and Dustin ate dinner together the night before the wreck. They laughed about building three houses
for us all to live in, but said they needed a direct phone line to each other to warn that Dewey and I were on our way down
the path to one of their houses. Brooke and Dustin were very close and needed each other through the years of Dewey’s transplants,
when they were left alone. Brooke will never adjust to being the only one.
For Christmas, my daughter organized a
trip for us to go to a resort. The whole trip ended in a nightmare and we left early. When we returned home, some of Dustin’s
bills were already there.
The first week of January, Brooke and I started trying to find out how to handle the bills.
So we called both insurance companies involved in the accident. We were told the owner of the Honda had claimed an accident
in which the driver named on the claim was not involved in the accident. They had no idea a person was killed. We then called
the other insurance company involved only to find out that they only knew about the accident from the paper. They had tried
to reach their insured with no success. This was the first time I felt angry. Four hundred plus people knew Dustin was killed,
but no one involved in the accident had taken the time to mention this fact to the insurance companies.
Brooke and
I got in the car and drove to Coweta to talk to officer Krumsiek. When we started asking about the accident report such as
times and dates, we found nothing had been started towards Dustin’s case. Officer Krumsiek started telling us that Johnathan
was a good kid and felt bad about everything. He then told us that Jonathan and his family had been friends for years.
Officer
Krumsiek said that John had made a bad mistake. I sat there a minute and then said John did not make a mistake he made choices.
1. He
chose to drink heavily
2. He chose to drive his truck
3. He chose to run a stop sign on a road he used regularly
There
were three chances to stop his reckless behavior, but he CHOSE not to. Because of this, I no longer have a son and my daughter
no longer has a brother and my husband no longer has any piece of mind.
Dustin’s friends were heartbreaking to listen
to. We didn’t know what to say to make some sense out of his death. I still talk to his friends a lot. At first, they weren’t
sure if coming by to see us would make us grieve more. Soon they found that we wanted them to come often. Watching his best
friends raise their families makes us feel some kind of closeness to them all. While at the hospital, one of Dustin’s friends
wanted to know if I thought Dusty would be okay by February to go to his state boxing match. Dustin had been waiting on this
for some time. When Chad had his match, Todd made stickers for their trucks that said DDG II and he passed them out. Chad
and the boys put one of these stickers in Chad’s headgear. Chad said “This one’s for you Gunter” and then won state. While
Dustin was in the hospital all of his friends started around pieces of paper on which they all wrote notes for Dustin to read
when he came out of his coma. One of the boys-Jason, took his cross off and hung it over Dustin. Then later, put it in his
casket.
On April 8th, Dustin’s birthday, we all went to his favorite Mexican food restaurant that he ate at three to
four times a week. One of his best friends didn’t come. We haven’t seen or heard from him in nearly a year. He can’t come
to our house because it hurts too much. I miss him and I’m sure we’ll see him one day.
Dustin and his friends lived
at the lake from May to August running back and forth to work, always dropping by on the way back to the cabin to grab food
or whatever they could find. They had a good time no matter what they were doing.
Dewey and Dustin spent a lot of
time together at the cabin. I’m going to have a hard time going back there someday. So far, I’m not ready.
We will
always miss and love Dustin, but we will have to go on and be glad we had him for 24 years.
I know Jonathan didn’t
go out that night to kill anybody, much less Dustin. I don’t want his life over. I forgave him almost before I knew him.
I want him to do his sentence, come out, and have everything I had hoped for Dustin. I want him to have a family and holidays
and a long good life and the son that Dustin always wanted.
My hope is his drinking and driving is over now and he
can control himself so someone else doesn’t have to lose a loved one or worse, their child, no matter how old. One day, maybe
we can talk and mend together. There are so many victims, the list just goes on. But soon we will all start to rebuild our
lives.
As for a mother who has lost her son, I can only say I would never have imagined the void in your heart when:
You wonder when did I last tell him I loved him
You smell his clothes with his cologne
You unwrap his
Christmas gifts
You buy him a headstone for Christmas
You think you heard him call for you
You
find all the cards you’ve given him over the years in a box in his room
You still can’t put his things away
You
find a note he had written you
You put his tooth and silver dollar under his pillow in his casket because you don’t
know what else to do with it
You get a phone call for him
You never get that big hug or kiss again
You
know he’s never coming home again!
There are two things that can never be taken away from me:
All my memories
and that I was his mother.
How lucky I was!
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