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SUNNY Temp: 64 °F Wind: CLM at 0 mph Sunday, October 5, 2003 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine Joy Magazine Tempo A & E RogueValleyAutoFinder RogueValleyHomeFinder Real Estate Showcase Wellness Connection Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Employment Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend September 28, 2003 Jerry Baker, with his wife, Joann, holds a box containing his son Bobby�s ashes at San Clemente Hospital in California, where Joann is a nurse. Bobby Baker, 29, was killed April 7 in a one-car crash on Butte Falls Highway. Photo by Steve McCrank Tragedy in two acts 2003: Emotional scars remain for parents who lost son in DUII crash By JONEL ALECCIA Mail Tribune Eight hundred miles from Oregon, Jerry Baker squints into the Southern California sky and remembers the son he sent up on a plane — and got back in a box. "This is what’s left of Bobby," Jerry Baker says grimly, prying open a brown plastic container to reveal the cremated remains of 29-year-old Robert Andrew Baker, who died April 7 in a car wreck on Butte Falls Highway. Jerry Baker’s wife, Joann, 54, pats his arm, tries to soothe him, to urge him to put the box away in front of visitors. But the grief that began with an early-morning phone call — "Jerry, Bobby’s dead. He was killed by a drunk driver" — remains too raw for propriety. The loss of the burly, big-hearted son who grew up surfing in California and fishing in Oregon has devastated the father left behind. Advertisement "We were like one," Jerry Baker says. "My psychiatrist says, ‘There’s a hole in your soul now where he was. You’ll have to fill it up with something else.’" The 57-year-old San Juan Capistrano mechanic can’t sleep, can’t eat, couldn’t work for four months. He started seeing the psychiatrist to help calm his thoughts of suicide. "Every day I think about ending my life a half-dozen times," Jerry Baker says. "Right now, it’s unbearable." The horror of losing his son has been compounded by the grisly coincidences surrounding the way Bobby died, says Jerry Baker. Nearly nine years earlier, the same driver, on a country road a quarter-mile away, was involved in another early-morning crash that killed another young man. In 1995, the 19-year-old driver, John Patrick Bush of Eagle Point, was convicted of driving under the influence of intoxicants. On Thursday, nearly six months after the crash that killed Bobby Baker, a Jackson County grand jury is expected to decide whether to indict Bush, now 29, on charges of second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and driving under the influence of intoxicants, according to District Attorney Mark Huddleston. The grand jury will take into consideration a Jackson County sheriff’s department report that shows John Bush had a blood alcohol level of .296 — more than three times the legal limit — at 4:15 a.m. on April 7, three hours after flipping his 1970 Ford half-ton truck against a red dirt embankment. Jury members won’t take into account the circumstances of the March 27, 1994, accident that killed 21-year-old David Edward Buchanan of Central Point on Obenchain Road. Back then, his mother, Connie Buchanan, wrote a letter on behalf of young John Bush to keep him out of prison. Charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide were dismissed; Bush was convicted of DUII. He performed 80 hours of community service and paid $754 in fines, court records show. This time, family members of both victims say if Bush is found to have been driving drunk again, the repeated tragedy calls for far stiffer consequences. "It’s real disturbing because it’s like getting kicked in the stomach and going through it all over again," says Connie Buchanan, 54. "I think he got a get-out-of-jail- free last time and I think he has to have something different happen. Obviously, that didn’t make an impression." Jerry Baker says he doesn’t know what justice would be, but he wants to see it carried out. "I could not imagine him not getting some (prison) time," he says. "When he stuck that key in that ignition, he knew he was drunk and he knew he’d done it before." But in the close-knit, rural community of Butte Falls, retribution isn’t so simple. Carol McGrath, a good friend of Karen Todd, Bobby’s mother, says most local residents haven’t lined up against John Bush. "Of course I can’t speak for everybody, but we feel that what happened was a double tragedy," says McGrath, 49, who works in the local U.S. Forest Service office with Todd. "We lost Bobby Baker and his family is living with that. But the other side of the coin is that we are going to lose John Bush to the legal system." Bobby Baker spent much of his youth in Southern California, but spent vacations and a couple of years at Butte Falls High School before heading south again. He returned more than a year ago to live with his mom and stepfather, Leon Todd. John Bush was born and raised in Butte Falls, where his family is well-known in the community. "Because it’s two local boys, it makes it, you know, people really are torn," says McGrath. "Most people think John is a very nice person and he’s made so many bad decisions. John needs some help." Even Karen Todd, 54, says she can’t find it in herself to condemn Bush. "I’m not sitting here saying, ‘Oh, I wish John Bush would die,’" Todd says. "John Bush is a nice person." The decisions that led to the April 7 accident started early the afternoon of April 6, says Todd. Bobby Baker clocked out of his job at the north Medford Fred Meyer store at 9:02 p.m., she says. It would have taken him an hour to get back to Butte Falls, where he apparently met John Bush at the Butte Falls Tavern. "He’d been there a while," Todd says. Todd says Bush told investigators he met Bobby Baker in a local park early that afternoon, a fact his mother disputes because Bobby Baker was working. She acknowledges her son was drinking, but because he was a diabetic, he limited his intake, she contends. "Bobby had one beer," Todd says. "I know that for a fact because the bartender told me." Barbara Clark, who owns the tavern, says the men had been there on April 6, but "it was hours before" the fatal accident. She says she doesn’t know how much they had to drink. Todd says she understands that the men left the bar at 10:30 p.m. to see a friend who was visiting from Alaska. They stayed at the friend’s house until about midnight. "And that’s all anyone knows," Todd says. "From midnight to 1 a.m., we don’t know anything." At just after 1 a.m. on April 7, a Jackson County Sheriff’s Office report shows that Bush’s truck was traveling west on Butte Falls Highway near the 11.5 mile marker when it drove off into a ditch and struck an embankment. The truck flipped, landing on its top and crushing the cab. Bush, who suffered head and back injuries, was taken to Rogue Valley Medical Center. Bobby Baker, who suffered fatal traumatic head injuries, was found pinned inside the cab, with his head near the driver’s door. A large black dog in the cab survived and had to be removed before rescue personnel could extricate Baker’s body. Another dog also survived the crash and jumped free. There were several alcohol containers, including two unopened cans of beer, found scattered near the truck, the report says. Neither Bush nor Baker was wearing a seat belt, the report says. The truck’s lap belts were hidden by a full-length cover on the bench seat. After the accident, Bush claimed that he was not driving the truck, which was registered to him. A preliminary investigation revealed that Bush was the likely driver. Bobby Baker’s parents said their 5-foot-4 son could not have reached the pedals from the seat permanently set for Bush, who is 6-foot-1. Bush was not arrested after the crash and the investigation continued slowly and very quietly, facts that frustrated Bobby Baker’s grieving father and stepmother in Southern California. "If he had killed some kid in a crosswalk, he’d still be in jail," Jerry Baker says. "But he killed some surfer kid from California and nobody cares." Such investigations, which require accident reconstruction experts and crime lab reports, often take months, says Jackson County Deputy District Attorney Allan Smith. State budget cuts have created a backlog for investigators and prosecutors alike, Smith says. Connie Buchanan recalls that it took nearly a year for Bush to face a grand jury in 1995. "And then they wouldn’t have done anything unless I pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed," she says. Bush’s driver’s license was suspended July 22 after law enforcement officials reported the most recent crash, according to David House, a spokesman for the state Driver and Motor Vehicle Services department. It was suspended again on Sept. 6 because Bush was driving without insurance and because he failed to report the April accident himself. Todd and McGrath say they’ve seen Bush driving around town, even though he cannot legally drive until Sept. 6, 2004. Bush did not respond to repeated requests for interviews. Such behavior months after a second fatal accident hasn’t inspired outrage, says John Adams, 37, pastor at the Butte Falls Community Bible Church, where Bobby Baker’s funeral was held. Most folks have moved on to other community topics, although a few still express concern about the twin tragedies nine years apart. "I’ve heard comments like, ‘Well, if they’d prosecuted him more severely the last time, this wouldn’t have happened,’" Adams says. But in a rural community where drinking and driving on country roads is often tolerated, but not condoned, the deaths of David Buchanan and Bobby Baker don’t seem to have prompted changes, Adams says. "After Bobby’s funeral, a number of young people went to the store and got a couple of cases of beer," he recalled at the time. "Will this make a difference? I’m not sure. I would like to think so. But I wouldn’t bank on it." That wrenches Jerry and Joann Baker, who’ve resolved to watch closely as the case grinds through the legal system. "They’re going to do what they’re going to do. It doesn’t change anything for me," Jerry Baker says. "All I know is somebody’s accountable. My son should be alive, that’s all I know." Reach reporter JoNel Aleccia at 776-4465, or e-mail [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2003 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. 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