A Repeat Drunk Driver’s Luck Runs Out

To the barflies at the Hen House tavern, Novis Levelle Lackey was known simply as “Lucky.”

Friends say the nickname dates to his Navy days, long before the retired veteran began showing up mornings for a few 12-ounce pulls of Budweiser on tap. Cigarettes in hand, the gray-haired 63-year-old would then hit the road, authorities say, maybe stopping off at the nearby Castle bar before heading home.

Lackey wasn’t always so lucky. He had racked up four drunk-driving convictions, went to jail and briefly lost his license following two DUIs in 1999. Yet despite careening into a parked truck and boat trailer in August of that year and leading police and concerned motorists on a weaving high-speed chase along Interstate 5 just three months later, Lackey had never killed anyone.

Until May 8 -- when his 1985 Toyota pickup veered out of control following a day of drinking, smashing into a Head Start preschool across the street from his apartment, police said. The truck plowed into the lobby, pinning 24-year-old teacher Nicole Burns against a wall, killing her instantly, and injuring a 5-year-old student.

After a decade of decline, drunk-driving deaths are again on the rise. From 1991 to 1998, such fatalities fell 48%, from 2,048 to 1,072. Then the incidents began a steady climb, increasing 22% by 2001, when 1,308 people died in drunk-driving-related accidents, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

One troubling phenomenon has remained constant: More than half the deaths and injuries from drunk-driving crashes involve a motorist with at least one prior DUI conviction.

Novis Lackey was arrested after both of his 1999 DUI incidents. He spent a brief time in jail and entered an alcohol counseling program.

But statistics show such arrests are on the decline. Drunk-driving apprehensions in California dropped nearly 50%, from 366,000 in 1991 to 190,000 in 1999, according to DMV statistics. The arrests dropped another 6.5% through 2001, the last year for which statistics are available.

CHP officials attribute the drop to a dramatic change in public drinking habits that includes increased use of designated drivers and the success of numerous campaigns against drunk drinking.

But while arrests have dropped, drunk-driving deaths have climbed.

“People were heeding our message throughout the ‘90s. But not anymore,” said Ron Miller, an official with the California chapter of the nonprofit activist group Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Is it because the cops aren’t getting drunk drivers off the street or are the drinkers driving while even more impaired? We just don’t know.”

Over this July 4 weekend, one of the top holidays for alcohol consumption, California Highway Patrol officers are waging a crackdown with increased enforcement that includes sobriety checkpoints.

Weeks after the Lackey crash, many in this tightknit Northern California community of 80,000 say the senseless death of a young teacher has shattered the veneer of safety in a city that often goes an entire year without a single murder. Scores attended her memorial services and the school received cards from well-wishers who didn’t even know the victim.

On that day in May, Burns -- who made home visits to Head Start pupils -- had briefly dropped by the office before she would have rushed off to pick up her own two small children. At the time of her death, the single mother carried a full load of college courses and took part in a program to build a home for her 4-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter.

“The man who did this has taken so much away from us -- a friend, a teacher, a mother and a daughter,” wrote the mother of one Burns’ students. “I want him to see the heartbreak in my 3-year-old’s eyes when she asks me, ‘Mommy, is Nicole coming today?’ and I have to say ‘No.’ ”

Lackey, who is scheduled for arraignment Monday on a host of charges, including vehicular manslaughter, has said he passed out from a coughing fit and woke up inside the preschool. He was not injured in the crash, but faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted on the manslaughter charge. His lawyer did not return telephone calls.

Shasta County Assistant Dist. Atty. Daniel E. Flynn said Redding still reels from the death -- particularly because Burns died in such a seemingly safe setting.

Said Flynn: “People are asking ‘Where am I safe from drunk drivers?’ ”

At the Bar Early

Novis Lackey likes to smoke when he drinks. And when he smokes, he coughs, he told police. At the Castle bar once, he hacked so violently that he fell and hit his head and had to be taken to the hospital.

On the morning of the crash, Lackey showed up at the Hen House when it opened at 10 a.m. and later stopped off at the Castle -- downing a total of at least six beers, police say. Shortly before 4 p.m., he was driving home, “feeling good,” when he suffered another coughing fit, he told detectives.

Suddenly, his truck accelerated to 60 mph, crossing five lanes of traffic before roaring up the wheelchair ramp outside the preschool. The truck smashed through the front doors, striking Nicole Burns as she stood at the front counter. The impact sent a shard of wood through a wall into an adjacent classroom, striking 5-year-old Savannah Pirritano, knocking her into the arms of a teacher.

Firefighters found Burns’ body buried under a pile of debris, pinned beneath the pickup’s front bumper. Lackey registered a .13 blood-alcohol level at the time of the crash, significantly higher than the .08 legal limit, court records say.

A short time later, detectives at police headquarters said they told a disoriented Lackey about Burns’ death. According to their report, the 30-year Navy veteran put his head in his hands, gasping, “Oh, my God! I don’t know what to say!”

Friends say Lackey is being made into a community scapegoat. They insist there was more to his life than drinking: He volunteered much of his time to local causes. He often took a cab home when he knew he’d had too much to drink, they say.

At the Hen House, which features a lascivious-looking rooster on the sign outside, regulars were hostile to a reporter and wouldn’t give their names. But some defended Lackey, describing him as a gentleman who once stood up to a man who had insulted a female patron. “Sure, he had a few beers, but he wasn’t drunk enough to run off the road and kill a teacher,” said one man. “He had a coughing fit and blacked out. It could have happened to anyone.”

Added one woman: “They say Lucky’s a murderer and that’s a bunch of bull. I can see how that teacher’s family might not want to let him out of jail, but that crash was not something he planned, I can tell you that.”

Still, the incident has left scars. Savannah Pirritano, the injured girl, told a local reporter the day after the crash: “I can’t go to school anymore because my school has a big hole in it. It makes me sad. My teacher, she went to heaven.”

A Rural Menace

Each day in America, 48 people die in alcohol-related crashes.

Although no one knows where the next drunk driver will strike, studies suggest that, per-capita, the mishaps are more likely to occur outside the big cities in places such as Redding.

“In the city, there’s better public transportation and speeds aren’t as high,” said MADD’s Miller. “In rural areas, people drive 20 miles home from the bars and the speeds tend to be greater.”

Located in the rural farm belt 220 miles north of San Francisco, Redding indeed has its share of drunk drivers.

“When picking juries for drunk-driving cases, we’ve found that some 70% of the pool have been directly affected by the crime,” said prosecutor Flynn. “Nearly everyone in town seems to know a drunk driver who killed or hurt someone, or has a friend or relative who’s been a victim to a drunk driver.”

Redding native Tammi Garber said many locals have little to do and spend most of their leisure hours drinking. “I take back roads going home at night -- I’m afraid of the main drags,” said the 31-year-old waitress. “And I never drive near the center divider line where the drunken yahoos lurk. That’s just suicide around here.”

Victim Remembered

On the day she died, Nicole Renee Burns brought co-workers a box of doughnuts on which she had written “Nicole Loves You.” Friends say the thoughtful Burns so doted on her children and students that she left little time for herself.

At the urging of co-workers, she recently had gotten her hair cut and went around proudly flicking her head to emphasize her new bangs. The school now uses the oversized doughnut box to keep the cards received about Burns, including the misspelled scribblings of one 4-year-old student: “Are prayers are with you.”

At the memorial service, friends talked about how Burns loved chocolate, vintage cars and Motown music.

That day, Burns’ parents were approached by a friend of their daughter’s who had her own tragic brush with a drunk driver. Twelve years ago, Tracy Burton’s mother was killed when an intoxicated motorist driving an eight-ton utility truck crashed into their living room as the family watched TV, barely missing Burton and her stepfather.

“I just told them that I’d be there for them,” Burton recalled. “They knew what happened to my mom.”

Amanda Sharp has hard sentiments for the man who killed her best friend.

“I hate him,” she said. “Nicole had so much to live for. He took something her children will never be able to get back. Now they’ll grow up without a mom. They’re so young. They’ll never know what a wonderful person she was.”