Meagan Napier and Lisa Dickson were killed when their car was struck by Eric Smallridge, above, who was driving drunk.
"My name is Eric Smallridge, or I should say, it was. My new identity is Inmate P22679. I am currently serving a 22-year sentence in the Florida Department of Corrections for my role in an accident that claimed the lives of two beautiful, 20-year-old girls, Meagan Napier and Lisa Dickson. I had been drinking. ...
Every day I wish that I had taken DUI more seriously and heeded the advice not to drink and drive. I had a great life full of opportunity and promise, a wonderful family, lots of friends, a beautiful girlfriend and I had just received my bachelor's degree in Management Information Systems.
In a split second, everything changed. It may be too late for me, but I really hope that telling you about the miserable realities of my life in a Florida prison will help you make better choices than I did. ...
The two people I think about the most are the two that died in the accident I didn't think could ever happen. Meagan Napier and Lisa Dickson were only 20 years old. They had their whole lives ahead of them. I think about them all the time and it hurts. Every day I ask God why I wasn't the one to die instead of them. I only wish I could trade places with them so they could realize the great lives they should have had, but I can't and they can't and I will live with that reality every single day of the rest of my life. I think about Meagan and Lisa's families and friends a lot, too. I agonize over what I could possibly do to ease their grief and return their loved ones to them. But I cannot do that either and it is more painful than any amount of physical torture that could be inflicted upon me.
If you have a drink, enjoy yourself but remember that driving simply is not an option. Don't risk it, not even once, because it only takes a split second to go from a great future to Inmate P22679. Please don't ever hesitate to designate a driver or to call a cab. Otherwise you may be riding in a police car or, God forbid, a hearse."
Meagan Napier, left, and Lisa Dickson were killed in the early morning hours on May 11, 2002, when the car in which they were riding was struck by Eric Smallridge, who was drunk.
Disparity in sentences In Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, there has been marked disparity in DUI-manslaughter sentencing.
In two highly publicized cases, a Pensacola teenager and Gulf Breeze physician received probationary sentences, partly because the victims' families didn't want them to go to jail.
Patrick Nobles, 21, was placed on house arrest followed by probation after a single-car wreck that killed his friend, Todd Currie, 18, in August 2003.
Dr. B.B. Jordan, 80, was placed on probation after his passenger and longtime friend, Paul Daniel, 72, died in a December accident caused by Jordan pulling into traffic in December 2004.
Yet other local defendants face years behind bars and chained fences.
Cleveland Rufus Campbell, 45, was sentenced last week to 20 years in state prison for a May 2004 accident that killed a91-year-old woman, Helouise Pire.
In June, Michael Stewart, 33, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for hitting Dexter Weaver, 41, a homeless man in a wheelchair, and leaving the scene of the accident.
Kenneth Ackerman, 61, is nine years into a 15-year prison sentence for killing pedestrian Chad Cowen, 24, in June 1997.
During his trial, Eric Smallridge was criticized for what was seen as a lack of remorse in the crash that killed Lisa Dickson and Meagan Napier. “All we were looking for was for him to stand up and say, ‘You know what? I screwed up.' ” Philip Napier said.
Renee Napier practically beamed over the phone as she talked about the holiday cards she receives from Eric Smallridge -- Inmate P22679 at Holmes Correctional Institute.
"He always sends a card at Mother's Day," Napier said. "And then he sends one at Christmas and Easter. He's very good about sending them."
Phillip and Mary Dickson have called Smallridge a "friend" and "brother."
Incredibly, Smallridge, 28, is the man who killed their 20-year-old daughters, Meagan Napier and friend Lisa Dickson, in a drunken-driving tragedy -- a drunken-driving crime -- in the early morning hours of May 11, 2002.
Now, four years later, the Napier and Dickson families are offering Smallridge the gift of forgiveness.
On Friday, Circuit Judge Ron Swanson is scheduled to preside over a hearing on Smallridge's motion to cut his state prison sentence from 22 years to 11 years. Members of both families are expected to be there to support his request.
In 2003, Circuit Judge Michael Allen ordered an 11-year term on each of Smallridge's two DUI-manslaughter convictions. The sentences were to run consecutively. Defense attorney Michael Ufferman of Tallahassee will argue Friday for the sentences to be completed at the same time.
Meagan's five immediate family members and her grandparents, Mary and Barney Burks of Pensacola, have written heartfelt letters in support of Smallridge's request, as have Lisa's parents.
They have let Swanson know they want to honor Meagan and Lisa with love, not hate. They have written of mercy and warned of the dangers of revenge and blood lust.
"This is one of the most difficult things I've ever been involved in," prosecutor John Molchan said last week. "We are still reviewing everything to see what our position will be."
The hearing will rekindle a local debate about equity in sentences for drunken-driving deaths and about how much say the victim's family should have.
IIn two highly publicized cases, a Pensacola student and a Gulf Breeze physician didn't go to jail at all after driving drunk and killing someone. Yet in other recent cases, defendants have been sentenced to up to 20 years in state prison.
The key difference: the victims' families urging a light sentence.
Renee Napier, 47, who now lives in the Tampa area, wants Smallridge out of prison while he still can make a life for himself and crusade against drinking and driving.
"Eric is a good person and I believe he has a good heart," she said. "It may have taken him going to prison to get to this point, but I believe he can do some good in this world."
Her ex-husband, Philip Napier, 48, a Pensacola contractor, said he found himself at a crossroad after Meagan's death.
"I had to ask myself, 'Are you going to harbor this anger and resentment all your life?' " he said. "I had to pray about it a lot. The anger and resentment were eating my lunch. It was making me an angry, miserable type of guy, and I didn't want to be that way, and I didn't think Meagan would want me to be that way."
The Dicksons sent a letter supportive of Smallridge's request to the judge. They declined to comment for this article.
"I just pray that due to the change of circumstances brought about by the grace of God and the forgiveness of the Napier and Burks families you will consider allowing me to serve my sentences concurrently," he wrote.
"... I will spend the rest of my incarceration doing anything and everything I can to help fight the battle against drinking and driving, and as soon as I am released on probation, I will put my heart and soul into carrying on Meagan's and Lisa's legacies in a positive manner."
Smallridge's downfall began at a beer party at Casino Beach on Friday, May 10, 2002, and continued at another beach party later that evening.
Driving home about 2 a.m. Saturday, he lost control of his Jeep Cherokee on Gulf Breeze Parkway and plowed into a Mazda.
Lisa, a University of West Florida sophomore, was driving, and her best friend, Meagan, a Tallahassee Community College sophomore, was her passenger.
The Mazda slammed into a tree in the median of the parkway. The two young women, both sober, died immediately.
He walked away from the wreck with barely a scratch, but life as the recent UWF graduate knew it had changed irrevocably.
Immediately after the accident, Smallridge's main concern appeared to be damage to his Jeep, according to witnesses. His blood-alcohol level was 0.201 -- more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.
Free on bond before his trial, he still drank occasionally, he admitted during an interview in 2004.
At one point, he said, he called his mother to say goodbye after consuming a bottle of vodka in a suicide attempt. He ended up in a treatment center.
The trial was contentious, with a seemingly defiant Smallridge adamantly challenging his blood-alcohol level and also insisting a third car cut him off and forced him into Meagan and Lisa.
Worst of all for the victims' families, there was no communication from Smallridge during the 14 months between the wreck and the trial.
It was at his sentencing that he finally delivered a wrenching apology.
"I would give my life -- I would honestly give my life -- if I could bring them back," he sobbed.
In the 2004 interview, he explained that his attorneys told him not to communicate with the victims' families before trial.
He said that was "a big mistake" that gave the wrong impression.
Philip Napier said it was hard for him when Smallridge never admitted responsibility at the trial.
"He was clearly trying to manipulate the laws of the land to get his freedom," he said.
But even those actions only angered the grieving father so much.
"I can't say that I don't understand that," he said. "A person or animal caged in a corner is going to claw and fight with everything they've got to get out of the cage.
"But what he didn't understand about our family -- and about the Dickson family, I believe -- is all we were looking for was for him to stand up and say, 'You know what? I screwed up. I was drunk, I drove, and it was horrible mistake, and I'm so sorry for what I've done.' And he never did do that."
The friendship between Smallridge and the victims' families has taken hold since he entered the prison -- from which his scheduled release date is Aug. 26, 2024.
It started with letters Smallridge sent the families seeking forgiveness.
Now, family members are corresponding directly with him in prison, while others have written letters to the judge in support of his request for the sentence reduction.
The Napiers and Dicksons believe Smallridge is sincere in his remorse.
In their letter to the judge, the Dickson family wrote: "If the requirement for this amount of leniency in spite of evidence is knowing the offender, let me say ... that Eric Smallridge is my friend and indeed Eric Smallridge is my brother."
The Napier family said they've been inspired by the Bible and by Jesus Christ.
They know it's a cliche, family members said. But they honestly asked themselves at different points after the tragedy, "What would Jesus do?"
Philip Napier, who attends Gulf Breeze United Methodist Church with his wife, Sunny, and their 5-year-old son, Chance, said prayer and reflection on mercy and compassion helped guide him to his current mind-set.
"I prayed on it a lot," he said. "And I really tried to think about how Meagan would react if the situation were reversed and I was killed. And I believe beyond a doubt that she would be the same way. She was always the peacemaker in our family, and I know she would be like that today. She wouldn't want me grow old full of hate and animosity."
In January, Philip Napier wrote Smallridge for the first time.
"My job here is to imitate Jesus, and I think in this instance He would be more about forgiving than punishing," the father wrote. "Granted, He would have the ability to see straight to your heart, and I don't. But what I do know is He has talked straight to mine and what He has told me is to make my actions reflect forgiveness, not hatred."
Still, he doesn't want Smallridge "let go tomorrow."
"Regardless of his sorrow and remorse, which I believe is sincere, there has to be accountability; otherwise we'll live in chaos," he said. "But I don't believe he is a career criminal. And I don't want a third life to be lost in this tragedy."
Renee Napier cited Smallridge's work in prison against drunken driving as testimony to his sincerity and his willingness to educate others. She hopes some day the two can appear together in awareness programs aimed at youth.
After his sentencing, Smallridge agreed to participate in a billboard campaign, featuring his sobbing picture from the trial and the words "I Drank, Drove, Killed and We Lost!" The picture and words also have been used in fliers distributed to young people across Florida.
Renee Napier, who now works for a Tampa-based safe-driver education group, corresponds regularly with Smallridge.
"I have told him to remain hopeful," she said. "I tell him about my hopes for him and me to speak together. There's so much we can do to help educate people and save lives."
Michelle Boyd, 26, a Tampa-area attorney who is Meagan's older sister, said forgiveness was not easy.
"God is giving us this clear message, though," she said. "Because when your heart is filled with bitterness and resentment, well, your heart will just rot away. It overtakes you."
"I know people out there look at us and think, 'These people are crazy,' " said Meagan's twin, Carmen, 24, who also lives in Tampa. "We all loved Meagan so much, and honestly there's rarely a minute in the day I don't think of her. She's a piece of me. But we can't harbor hate."
What would her twin sister, who often would finish her sentences or walk into the room singing the same verse of the same song -- though previously out of earshot -- think of her family's efforts to spare the man who killed her from spending 22 years in prison?
"I think," Carmen said, "that she's smiling down on us."
Renee Napier even has become friends with Smallridge's parents -- Gary, a lawyer, and Raine, a School District employee, who live in Tallahassee.
"Whenever we stop through Tallahassee, we'll stop by and have lunch or dinner," Renee Napier said. "Getting to know them and their hearts, well, they're just a good family. And their son doesn't have a criminal mind. He didn't set out to kill our daughter."
"They've told me, with tears in their eyes, that if the shoe was on the other foot, they weren't sure they could do what we're doing," she said. "They said they weren't sure if they could be as forgiving. But it's in all of us."
Smallridge's parents say they're "awestruck" by the mercy and compassion.
"Basically, the miracle as far as I'm concerned, and as far as Eric is concerned, has already happened," his mother said.
"And the miracle is the extraordinary journey with these families. They're just incredible and a blessing for all of us. The inspiration we have gotten, the love and forgiveness the Napiers and Dicksons have given us is a gift."
But how much the mercy of the Napiers and Dicksons will influence Judge Swanson isn't known.
One legal expert said their support might not be enough to sway a judge.
"Technically, a criminal procedure obtains justice for people as a whole and is not designed to specifically vindicate the rights or wishes of the victims," said Michael Seigel, professor of law at the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida.
Others agree, saying that drunken drivers have a debt to society, not just the victims' families.
"Who's to say he won't do it again?" said Pensacola resident Tina Carson, 42, whose sister was severely injured in a drunken-driving collision about 10 years ago. "If it were my family, I'd want him in jail thinking about what he'd done for a long time. Longer than 11 years."
And on the News Journal online forums, some writers commenting on the case said Smallridge deserves no leniency.
"That is the price you pay," one forum poster wrote. "There is no way this guy should be released from prison. ... Letting him out early would just make a joke of his sentence."
"Eric has a really good heart and I feel he is truly sorry for what he did. ... Everyone makes mistakes, especially if they have been drinking. Unfortunately, this one turned out to be fatal. ... I want Eric to be able to start his own family and get to see the family that is waiting on him to come home."
Copyright 1997-2006 the Pensacola News Journal, Pensacola Florida.
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