Man gets 43 years in deaths of five

Michael Gagnon of Adrian, Mich., listens as the judge hands down his sentence. (AP photo / June 27, 2008)

A man who was drunk on beer and tequila when he drove his pickup truck the wrong way on an Ohio highway, smashing into a minivan and killing a Baltimore County mother and four children returning from a Christmas trip, was sentenced yesterday to more than four decades in prison.

Michael Gagnon, a 24-year-old construction worker who had slipped away from a holiday celebration of his own when he set off toward the interstate, was sentenced in a Toledo, Ohio, courtroom to 43 years in prison for killing the five Parkville residents.

In imposing the sentence, the judge pointed to the man's drinking problem, shown by a blood-alcohol level far beyond the legal limit.

And the father who, along with two other children, survived the crash, told the court of coming home to a house no longer bustling with family.

"I know my life isn't over," Daniel Griffin Jr. said. "But a large part is missing."

In a telephone interview last night, Griffin said that he misses the "absolute perfect family atmosphere."

"It was really nice on a day-to-day basis to come home and feel so loved," he said.

Gagnon also spoke to the court, apologizing.

"In my mind and spirit, I will be serving a life sentence for the pain I've caused," he said.

Back in Maryland, a Mothers Against Drunk Driving official said she approved of the sentence.

"We appreciate the seriousness of this crime and are happy that the judge seemed to understand that as well," said Caroline Cash, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving for Maryland and Delaware. "This is just such an unspeakable tragedy. Nothing will bring those children and that mother back, and that is why we work so hard to make sure people understand that [drunken driving] is a 100 percent, completely preventable crime."

Gagnon, of Adrian, Mich., had been drinking with family at a bar on Dec. 30 to celebrate the New Year, ordering five buckets of beer and 10 shots of tequila, a prosecutor said. The man left the bar - telling no one, his brother later said - and went to a Taco Bell restaurant. Gagnon appeared so intoxicated that restaurant workers called police, authorities said, but by then he was on his way toward Interstate 280.

He drove about four miles in the wrong direction, just missing several cars.

Griffin, who was driving the minivan, was returning home to Parkville with his wife and their children from a holiday visit to family in Michigan when Gagnon's truck came around a curve and straight at them. Both vehicles swerved, but the truck sheared off the minivan's passenger-side doors, throwing some of the family members onto the highway among Christmas presents and toys.

The collision killed Griffin's wife, Bethany Griffin, 36; her three daughters, Haley Burkman, 10, Lacie Burkman, 7, and Vadi Griffin, 2 months; and his daughter, Jordan Griffin, 10. Sidney Griffin and Beau Burkman, both then 8, survived.

At the crash scene, Gagnon told a witness, "I'm wasted," said Jeffrey Lingo, the prosecutor in the case.

Gagnon had a blood-alcohol level of 0.25 - more than three times Ohio's legal limit of 0.08. Marijuana was also in his system.

Griffin, 36, and his wife had been married just over a year, but their families had already meshed, he said.

"It was just a really special thing to watch in the short time we did have," he said.

News of the crash rocked the family's community. At the funeral at St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northeast Baltimore, children were given bottles of blowing bubbles and told to use them to send their love to their friends.

Related topic galleries: Drunk Driving, Road Transportation, Public Holidays, Prosecution, Prisons, Parkville, Murder

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