Driver pleads guilty to drunken driving crash that killed O'Grady

By JULIE MANGANIS

News staff

SALEM -- A tearful Maureen Henry pleaded guilty yesterday to driving drunk and causing the crash that killed Salem Boys and Girls Club director Stephen O'Grady last year.

And in what a prosecutor described as "a monumental act of mercy," O'Grady's family and friends supported the judge's sentence of 2 1/2 years in jail.

She could have faced up to 15 years in prison.

"If my son was alive," said Theresa O'Grady, "he would have just said, 'Let her go.' It's how Stephen was."

Just moments before, Mrs. O'Grady had watched as Henry pleaded guilty to two counts stemming from the Sept. 26, 1999, accident that killed her son and seriously injured one of his best friends, Wayne Cross, who has since recovered.

Although the district attorney's office had sought a 4- to 6-year prison term, Mrs. O'Grady and the rest of her family and friends had agreed to support the lesser jail term. Salem Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein agreed, saying Henry appeared to show remorse.

"I just couldn't handle having it drag on," Mrs. O'Grady said after the sentencing.

"We couldn't handle it mentally or physically. She's going to be punished her whole life. It's not just the 2 1/2 years."

Henry will have to live with the knowledge that by getting behind the wheel of her Mercedes-Benz that evening, after drinking what she said were two or three rum and colas, she set off a chain of events that led to the death of one of Salem's most beloved citizens.

Though only 30, O'Grady was already a pillar of the community, a beloved Little League coach and well-respected director of the Boys and Girls Club.

O'Grady had spent the weekend at his condominium in Bartlett, N.H., with good friends Rosemarie and Wayne Cross.

Rosemarie Cross was driving O'Grady's Jeep Grand Cherokee home to Salem that Sunday night, as O'Grady rode in the passenger seat and her husband stretched out in the back seat. They were traveling south on Route 95 in Boxford, said Assistant District Attorney William Melkonian.

At the same time, Henry, also traveling south, was trying to pass another vehicle, something she had been doing all the way down the highway, Melkonian said.

Henry suddenly noticed that she had no room to pass that car on the right, and veered back into her lane. That's apparently when she lost control of her car.

The sedan veered across another lane and struck the passenger-side rear tire of the Grand Cherokee, causing the SUV to spin and then roll over.

Meanwhile, the Mercedes continued traveling across the highway and the median, colliding with a another car, driven by Timothy Murphy of Groveland, in the northbound lane.

O'Grady suffered massive head trauma as the Grand Cherokee's roof collapsed on his head.

Wayne Cross was thrown from the car and suffered head trauma, a fractured elbow and other injuries, and was flown to Boston Medical Center.

Rosemarie Cross and Murphy received less serious injuries.

Henry, who remained at the scene after the crash, failed several field sobriety tests and registered a .13 blood alcohol level, said Melkonian.

She told police, "All of a sudden I was going across the highway."

She also told them that when she left York Beach, Maine, after an afternoon with friends, she thought she was OK to drive, the prosecutor said.

Plea for forgiveness

Choking back sobs, Henry pleaded for forgiveness from O'Grady's family and friends.

"I'm truly sorry, I am, and I pray that someday you'll be able to forgive me," Henry said.

For Henry, the courtroom is a sadly familiar place.

Five years ago, she watched as her son-in-law was convicted of killing her daughter, Donna Bianchi, of Revere.

Robert Bianchi shot his 23-year-old wife five times at close range, after chasing and cornering her in their yard. He blamed his use of steroids, but also claimed self-defense, something that left Henry and the rest of her family stunned and angered.

He is now serving a life sentence.

After the death of her daughter, Henry said, she thought nothing else would ever hurt her as much.

Then, after the accident, Henry said, "I experienced an emotion I never knew before, guilt."

Mrs. O'Grady said that when she learned of Bianchi's death, "at first, I did feel bad."

But, she noted, "after she went through something like that, I'd think she be more careful."

John Burke, Henry's lawyer, said Henry knows "in some respects" what the O'Grady family is going through. Each time he filed a motion in the case, he said, Henry's first question was, "What will Mrs. O'Grady think?"

Burke said Henry had wanted to speak with Mrs. O'Grady over the past 15 months, but he had advised her not to do so.

He asked the judge for a one-year jail term, though he had already proposed a 2 1/2 year term, which the families had agreed to support.

Henry told the O'Grady and Cross families her heart is breaking over all of the pain she has caused.

"I only wished it had been me killed and not Stephen, who had his whole life ahead of him," Henry said.

"She's suffered," said Rosemarie Cross. "If she's a compassionate person, she's suffered."

"I think she's going through a living hell," said Wayne Cross, who added he wants to know that Henry will never drink and drive again.

As part of her sentence, Henry's license to drive has been suspended by the Registry of Motor Vehicles for 10 years.

After her release from jail, which could come in a little more than a year, Henry will be on probation for five years. During that time, she was ordered to receive alcohol treatment. She will also be subject to testing to ensure that she remains sober.

The impact continues

Mrs. O'Grady, in a statement to the court, said she keeps hoping she will wake up and learn that her son's death was a dream.

"I feel as though my whole world has fallen apart," she said. "No parent wants to outlive their child. Stephen had the whole world in the palm of his hand, with everything going for him.

"Today, I feel that I am not living, just existing."

His sister, Beth O'Grady, said her brother "deserves to have people know how much he was loved and missed."

O'Grady was "a beautiful, loving and caring person" whose greatest joys in life came from simple things, like sitting at a Little League game.

She recalled how the faces of children would light up when O'Grady showed up.

And she recalled caring for O'Grady, nine years her junior, when he was a boy, dressing him, trying to carry him upstairs to bed, though he was nearly as big as his older sister.

"I want my brother Stephen back," she said. "I want him to leave one minute earlier or one minute later. ... I see life through a constant mist of tears."

Rosemarie Cross said O'Grady's life was like a good book, one that you don't want to finish.

"Well, we have finished with that book, and there will never be another one like it," Cross said in her statement, which was read by a friend, Richard Ives.

She said she still struggles because she fears driving, and fears becoming a burden to her family, who must drive her to do her holiday shopping.

Stopping history

After hearing the impact statements, the judge also addressed Henry.

"As you know from your own daughter's death," said Borenstein, "a parent is not supposed to bury their child."

Borenstein said he could not fathom how the O'Grady family in particular could show such compassion and mercy.

"You stopped his history," said the judge. "For them to come in and not show any vindictiveness, and to tell me they're struggling and hope to one day forgive you, is, to me, beyond words."

But the judge also acknowledged Henry's willingness to take responsibility for the accident.

"You've suffered tragedy," said the judge. "I am persuaded you do feel remorse."


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