According to statistics from 2022, each day, approximately 37 people within the United States are killed in a drunk-driving crash which equates to one person every 39 minutes with a total of 13,524 alcohol-impaired driving fatalities.
Because alcohol impairs brain function, thinking, reasoning & muscle coordination, driving after drinking is deadly. 32% of traffic fatalities within the United States involve drivers with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08% or higher. Driving with a BAC over .08% is a crime in all 50 states with the exception of Utah where the legal limit is .05%. For commercial drivers, the legal limit is .04% & for those under 21 there is a zero tolerance limit, meaning any amount of alcohol consumption can result in a DUI arrest.
Even a small amount of alcohol can affect driving ability as in 2022, there were 2,337 deaths in crashes where the driver had a BAC of .01-.07%. BAC is measured by a breathalyzer or by a blood test.
In 2013, a 16-year-old boy made the decision to steal beer, host a party, get drunk & foolishly go for a drive. As a result of his reckless choices, he forever changed the lives of many when he killed four innocent people & paralyzed another near Burleson, Texas.
This case went on to spark a nationwide debate on the role that privilege played on the road to justice. Many had never heard of a case where the defense tried to blame the actions of an offender on his parent’s wealth in what is known as affluenza.
On the night of Saturday, June 15, 2013, 24-year-old private chef, Breanna Mitchell, was coming home from work when she was forced to swerve off the road after a tire blew on her white Mercury Mountaineer. As the car knocked over a mailbox, it stopped at the edge of a front lawn on Burleson-Retta Road, a two-lane road without shoulders that cuts through an affluent neighborhood on the outskirts of Fort Worth.
As Breanna’s car came to a stop, it was just after 11 pm. Because of the nature of her job as a chef at a private club, she was often working late. Hearing a commotion outside their home, 52-year-old Hollie & Eric Boyles & their 21-year-old daughter, Shelby, came out to assist Beanna. The family had been enjoying a relaxing night at home together, catching up with Shelby who was home on break from nursing school. They’d finished eating their favorite dinner of fried chicken & settled onto the couch to watch a movie together.
Just down the street, a family was hosting a high school graduation party & one of the attendees was 41-year-old Brian Jennings, a married father of three. As the party was coming to an end, Brian’s white pick-up truck was loaded up with the tables & folding chairs they’d borrowed from the church & Brian set out. He was driving with two middle school students that night, his godson, 12-year-old Lucas McConnell & his friend, Isaiah McLaughlin. Noticing the family standing on the side of the road, he stopped his pickup truck to offer assistance as well. As he climbed out to help Breanna, he instructed the boys to stay in the truck with their seat belts buckled.
In the meantime, Breanna was on the phone with her mom, letting her know what happened. As the group of five were assessing the damage to her car, Eric grabbed his overturned mailbox & moved it to their garage for safekeeping until it could be repaired. While Eric was still in the garage, he heard a deafening crash. It was so loud that a neighbor who was wearing headphones while watching a movie heard it & ran out to see what was going on. Another neighbor, nearly a half-mile away, described the sound as an explosion.
It turned out that in the brief moment that Eric turned to walk to the garage, a red Ford F-350 that was driving at a speed of 70 mph in a 40 mph zone, barreled through the darkness, ran off the road into the grass & first slammed into Breanna’s Mountaineer & then tragically struck, Brianna, Hollie, Shelby & Brian, killing them all.
The red truck that carried six teenagers in the cab & two in the bed next hit Brian’s pickup truck that held the two middle school boys & flipped into a tree. As Brian’s truck was hit, it careened into the road & hit an oncoming VW Beetle.
Seven 911 calls came flooding through that were all placed within four minutes of one another. In these recorded phone calls that highlighted the chaotic & unimaginable scene, a woman told the dispatcher that she stopped her car as she just came upon the scene of an accident & screamed, Oh, there’s another child in the ditch! The dispatcher asked her to stop screaming so that she could understand what was going on & asked her how many cars were involved. She said that because it was dark, she couldn’t tell but said that there were kids laying in ditches & in the street. In the background, the dispatcher was able to hear some of the victims moaning.
In another recording, a man could be heard telling his son to sit down & pray, to not look at the unimaginable scene in front of them. As the man tried to tell the dispatcher how many victims were involved, he indicated that it was so many that he couldn’t even count.
Another call came from a teenage boy who was clearly intoxicated as he told the dispatcher that they needed some ambulances. His voice slurred, It’s bad. We flipped and.. He explained that there were body parts in the street. When he was asked how many people needed help he said, Dude, I have no idea.
The scene was indescribably horrific. There was mangled metal, human remains & broken glass strewn about the street spanning 300 feet. The odor of burned rubber & gasoline`filled the air. When a Tarrant County Sheriff’s deputy responded to the scene, he likened it to a plane crash rather than a car crash.
The driver of the red F-350 that was the cause of the devastation walked away from the wreckage, 16-year-old Ethan Couch. Not only was it later proved that his blood-alcohol level was three times above the legal limit of driving at .24%, but he also had Valium & marijuana coursing through his system.
Ethan Couch was born on April 11, 1997 to parents Fred & Tonya & he grew up in Burleson, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth. Fred runs a highly successful sheet-metal company & owns homes in Fort Worth. Fred & Tonya went on to divorce in 2006 & the court ordered psychological evaluations for the three. During this time, Fred & Tonya were interviewed separately & Ethan was spoken with at both homes.
Fred explained to the social worker that his marriage to Tonya was a mistake from the start. He elaborated that she had a pill addiction & had given Vicodin to Ethan on more than one occasion. She threatened suicide & referred to their young son of 9 as her protector. At the time, Ethan slept most nights on the bed that Tonya had moved into her bedroom.
On the other hand, according to Tonya, it was Fred that was the cause of their divorce due to his verbal & physical abuse. Oftentimes he would call her disparaging names & grab her by the hair & on more than one occasion, he even threw her into their fireplace. She said that he also pushed & choked her daughter from her first marriage & during one of their fights he threatened to burn the house down.
According to Ethan’s half-sister, Fred slapped her mother when she was pregnant with Ethan & Tonya indicated that he had multiple affairs & manipulated the family with money.
The police frequently visited the Couch household during the social workers visits with Fred. There were times that he was advised to leave the home, but there were no arrests during these visits. Fred had been arrested before when he punched someone on a construction site, but he never served time for this offense.
Both Fred & Tonya admitted that they never followed their court-mandated visitation schedule. Much of the time, Ethan was living with Tonya in her 4,000 square foot ranch home in Burleson, a home that the family shared from the time that Ethan was three when his parents filed for divorce. The home sits on six acres, has a pool, a playground, a barn & a 6,000 square foot workshop in the back. Because of the open, spacious floor plan, the home was a perfect spot for entertaining & hosting parties.
Fred stopped by the home that Ethan shared with his mom about three times per week & every so often Ethan would stay with Fred. According to Tonya, during his visits with his father, Ethan was not properly supervised. In response to the accusation, Fred indicated, I am not a mom.
A neighbor of the family, Teri Flamming, who lives next door, felt that they were decent neighbors who generally kept to themselves. Many of the houses in the area were surrounded by large fences & tall gates at the front of the driveways. Sometimes Teri’s daughter would play with Ethan, who she described as a polite, normal child.
The social worker who spoke with Ethan also described him as polite & patient. He told her that his favorite school subjects were PE & math. He was a good student, enjoyed school & maintained good grades despite being absent 50 days during kindergarten & 40 days during second grade. During these conversations, he would say that he loved his parents, wished to see his dad more & only wanted to feel secure. According to Ethan, his parents were often yelling at one another & he felt that he was put in the middle a lot of the time.
The social worker concluded her report by writing that Fred & Tonya continue to exhibit a high degree of animosity & conflict. She was concerned about Ethan’s co-dependent relationship with Tonya & Fred’s lack of presence. Both Fred & Tonya had placed Ethan in adult situations & decisions in what was referred to as the fact that he had been adultified.
During the visits with the social worker, Ethan excitedly showed her his bedroom as well as the fenced area in the back where the dogs stayed. He not only had his own four-wheeler but also a motorcycle. While Fred was tied up speaking with the police that day, the young Ethan was said to be indifferent to the presence of the police cars & officers.
Around the time when Fred & Tonya were divorcing, Ethan was enrolled in Anderson Private School, in Fort Worth. Here, enrollment is competitive, children must have a high IQ & many are ready for college by age 16. Ethan first started at Anderson Private School when he was nine & Tonya indicated that she chose the school because she wanted better for him.
According to the founder of the school, LeVonna Anderson, Tonya loved Ethan so much that she struggled to deny him anything & rarely said no to any of his requests. LeVonna felt that Ethan could benefit from counseling, but speculated that he would likely think he was smarter than his counselor.
During his time at Anderson, LeVonna saw multiple screaming matches between Fred & Tonya in the parking lot of the school. During most of these arguments, Ethan was present. On one occasion, Fred locked the doors of his truck as Ethan sat inside & threatened to speed away. The police were called to the scene but no arrests were made.
A psychologist later testified that Fred had a very short fuse, was loud & quick to anger since as far back as childhood. During disagreements, he was known to rough people up. By age 21, Fred was married to a woman named Gaye & was the president & owner of Cleburne Sheet Metal, which does large-scale metal roofing. The company currently has 1.3 stars on Google reviews. It’s unclear where he got the money to start the business, but the company employs 40 people. During a DWI in 1992, Fred commented to the police officer, I make more in a day than you make in a year.
Meanwhile, Tonya quit school at age fifteen & was married & pregnant by eighteen & divorced ten years later. She had two children during her first marriage who were in & out of the home she shared with Fred while Ethan was a baby. Tonya & Fred were married in 1996 & Ethan was born in April 1997. She herself has been arrested for reckless driving when she ran a car off the road. After she got her GED she briefly worked as a vocational nurse & then sporadically helped Fred out with his business.
When Ethan started attending Anderson Private School, Tonya often accompanied him on field trips & purchased lunches for the other kids. She also funded the school’s tornado shelter. When Ethan was only thirteen, LeVonna, the owner, was shocked when he drove himself to school. She spoke with Fred about the incident & was not happy with his response when he told her that Ethan was the best driver he knew. Fred was adamant that Ethan was going to continue driving himself to school because it was his belief that his son was better, more talented & a golden boy.
During Fred’s confrontation with LeVonna about an underage Ethan driving, he told her that he could buy the school & ended up pulling Ethan from there & enrolling him in a home-schooling program. By age fifteen, he was done with that too. It’s unclear if he graduated or got his GED, but Ethan began taking community college classes & occasionally working at his dad’s company.
Fred built a 7,000 square foot house in Fort Worth that had a two-story guest house & a massive workshop. At some point, Tonya even moved back in & in 2011 they remarried. They each noticed that Ethan was becoming more withdrawn & by January 2013 he even lived by himself for several days a week at their Burleson home or with his cousin. The Burleson home was empty other than a bed, a couch, an Xbox & a large TV.
On a random visit to check on his 16-year-old son, Fred stopped by the house & saw beer cans in the garbage. He woke his son & asked him who had been drinking & Ethan said it was from his older cousin, but Fred later indicated that he was aware that his son was lying.
When Ethan was fourteen, Fred found him on the fourth of July passed out from drinking too much rum & Fred was only irritated that his son was too intoxicated to set off fireworks as they usually did so he shot them off with other kids instead.
When Ethan broke his father’s rules & let a friend drive their old Firebird that was parked out back, Fred took his son’s truck away & he was forced to walk a mile to & from work until Tonya let him borrow her truck.
In February 2013, Ethan was driving his mom’s truck when a Lakeside police officer found him urinating in a Dollar General parking lot at 1 am. The officer found an unclothed 14-year-old girl inside the truck along with a can of Miller Lite & a bottle of Grey Goose. 15-year-old Ethan was obviously intoxicated & when the officer asked him what he was doing, he replied, What’s it look like I’m doing?
When Tonya was summoned to the scene she said that she was unaware that her son had snuck out of the house. Ethan claimed that he’d consumed only one beer. Despite the fact that he broke at least six laws in this instance, he was only issued a ticket for minor in consumption & minor in possession.
Tonya drove her intoxicated son home & left the truck in the parking lot. She went on to cover for her son & lied to Fred; she paid his fines & when he failed to complete the required alcohol awareness class & community service hours, she claimed that it was her fault since she misread the instructions. On top of his alcohol consumption, Ethan’s cocaine use began to escalate between February 2013 & the time of the car crash in June.
Ethan eventually pleaded guilty to four counts of intoxication manslaughter for the deaths of Breanna, Hollie, Shelby & Brian & two counts of intoxication assault for the two teens who were thrown from the bed of his truck as it flipped.
Everyone was shocked when Ethan’s defense presented a curveball during his sentencing hearing when he described that the 16-year-old had been a victim of his parent’s wealth. He argued that he’d grown up with no repercussions for his bad behavior & the word affluenza was used by a psychologist. Affluenza is defined as a psychological malaise affecting wealthy young people. It includes symptoms that include a lack of motivation, feelings of guilt & a sense of isolation.
Many were outraged & disgusted by the phrasing that the psychologist used & viewed Ethan as nothing more than a spoiled teen from a well-off family who was yet again trying to escape the consequences of his horrific choices. Ethan’s case made people believe that there were two separate justice systems in the country; one for the rich & one for the poor & Ethan’s face represented that of wealth & privilege.
Fred & Tonya declined to comment publicly, but the court documents that stretched back more than a decade outlined the story of indulgence, addiction, abuse & neglect.
By the time of the sentencing hearing, there were seven civil suits filed not only against Ethan, but also against his parents because the F-350 he drove during the crash was owned by Cleburne Sheet Metal, the successful family business.
In the time it took Eric Boyles to walk to his garage with his mailbox in hand, he lost his 52-year-old wife & 21-year-old daughter, Hollie & Shelby. The accident happened just minutes before Father’s Day. In an instant the mother & daughter were removed from this world as they stood in their front lawn trying to help a bystander. According to their obituaries, Hollie was a devoted wife & mother, a cancer survivor & an active member of Cana Baptist Church. Shelby was a senior in the nursing program at University of Louisiana at Monroe. She was active in the church & participated in missions.
Eric recalls running out & seeing car parts, bodies & debris scattered everywhere. He first found his wife & immediately knew that Hollie was gone. He began searching for Shelby & found his daughter twenty feet down the road, thrown up against a fence.
When Breanna Mitchell was run down, her mother, Marla, had been actively speaking with her on the phone & is forced to live with the sounds during the moment her baby girl lost her life. Her daughter’s last words echo in her head forever as her daughter said, Ok, Mom, I love you. Please hurry. According to Breanna’s obituary, she loved her dogs, her family & her fiance, Billy. Not only had Marla heard the sounds of the crash, but she also met Ethan at the scene.
As Marla arrived, Ethan slurred, You don’t want to go that way. There’s nothing good happening over there. As he spoke these words, she didn’t yet know who he was or what role he’d played that night. Marla recalls the horror of that night & reflects that by the time she found her daughter, her legs were no longer attached to her body.
Brian Jennings, the 41-year-old minister who was the Good Samaritan that stopped his truck to help others despite the late hour, left his wife & three children behind. Brian was said to be the type of person who always wore a warm, caring smile on his face & made a positive difference in the lives around him. Brian’s wife, Shaunna Jennings, was driving home from the party when she came upon the horrible scene. She felt like she was watching a movie when she realized their friend had also come upon the scene & was actively performing CPR on Brian.
One of the boys who sat in the bed of Ethan’s truck, Sergio Molina, is now paralyzed as a result of the crash & only able to communicate by blinking. Before he met Ethan, Sergio was a soccer player & now his mother & his brother will have to take care of him for the rest of his life. The 15-year-old suffered a traumatic brain injury & remains minimally responsive. His family has gone on to file a suit against Ethan, his parents & Fred’s company. The other teen in the bed of the truck, Soliman Mohmand, suffered broken bones & internal injuries.
A passerby stopped & found Ethan lying in a ditch wearing only a pair of swim trunks. Her teenage son stayed with Ethan, who had a scratch on his back & blood on his chest, & he eventually woke up. Ethan resisted medical attention & became belligerent as officers tried to keep him calm & said, I can’t afford an ambulance. I can’t afford this.
All of the suits were settled in a group mediation with the settlements sealed, without the defendants admitting fault.
The weekend before the crash, a girl who was in the truck on that horrible night, 15-year-old Starr Teague, was hanging out with Ethan & a boy she’d just started dating, Garrett, who was also Ethan’s best friend. The trio were drinking in the guesthouse at one of Ethan’s parent’s newer houses in Fort Worth. Tonya was aware that everyone was there & Starr was so intoxicated that she didn’t recall much of the night.
The following weekend, on the night of the crash, Starr did not feel up to drinking again when the group was gathered at Ethan’s Burleson ranch house. However, it was Garrett’s birthday & another friend was preparing to leave for the Army so Ethan wanted to host a party.
Both Ethan & Garrett worked at Fred’s company earlier that Saturday & left in the late afternoon to pick Starr up on their way back to Ethan’s. Ethan was driving Fred’s massive F-350 because his own Harley was in the shop. The following day was Father’s Day & Ethan told his parents to get the grill ready for a cookout.
Once back at the house, Ethan & Garrett took showers & posted invites to the party on both Facebook & Twitter. Avery, their friend who was set to go to the Army, was the first guest to arrive. They soon began taking shots, had dinner & took more shots. The four then got into Ethan’s truck to pick up some of Garrett’s friends in Keller, many of whom neither Starr nor Ethan had ever met. As they drove past a newly mowed soccer field, Ethan drove his truck onto the grass & began doing doughnuts.
They stopped at an Albertsons grocery store with the intention of stealing beer. To supplement the beer, Avery also brought a bottle of liquor that he got from his cousin. Because the security staff at the store was watching the group of teens closely, they aborted their plan & decided to go to Walmart instead. Five boys were captured roaming through the store on security footage while Ethan, Avery & Starr stayed inside the truck. They picked up three cases of Miller Lite & exited through the side entrance without paying.
Once back at Ethan’s house, the group blasted rap music while they played beer pong & did more shots. They set fireworks off out back & all planned to spend the night. According to Starr, Ethan was texting his mom off & on throughout the evening.
Since Starr wasn’t imbibing in alcohol that night & was growing weary of watching drunk people, she decided to leave the party early. At the same time, she realized she was starting her period & didn’t have any tampons with her. Unsuccessfully reaching two cab companies, Ethan began to scour the bathroom cabinets in hopes of finding an extra tampon, but didn’t find one. After doing another shot of Everclear he offered to drive her to a gas station that was less than one mile away.
Since Ethan had only just met some of the guys that very night, he didn’t feel comfortable leaving them at his house while he wasn’t there so he told everyone to climb into his truck. On his way out to the truck, he randomly grabbed a box fan & smashed it onto the ground. According to Starr, it was his way of showing off to people he didn’t know. She recognized just how drunk he was & told him that he shouldn’t be driving & described him as so gone to the point that he didn’t even know where he was.
Two boys climbed into the front of the truck while two got into the backseat & two in the bed of the truck. Starr remembers Garrett holding the door open for her to climb in as he noticed her uneasiness about the situation & assured her it would be fine since he’d seen Ethan drive in this intoxicated state plenty of times before.
Thinking back to this moment brings Starr to tears since she blames herself for the fact that the only reason they were going out that night was for a tampon that she needed.
As they pulled out of the driveway, Ethan immediately gunned the engine while Starr & Garrett yelled at him to stop. Ethan only laughed in response as he drove on the wrong side of the road & Starr continued to yell. As Ethan moved the truck to the right side of the road he overcorrected & drove into the grass, less than a quarter of a mile from his house at this point. Later analysis of the truck proved that he was driving as fast as 74 miles per hour (119 kilometers per hour) at the time the airbags deployed & Ethan never touched the brakes before impact.
When they set off, Starr had been sitting in the backseat on Garrett’s lap, but when she regained consciousness after the crash, she was in the front seat, covered in broken glass & blood.
Within two weeks of the crash, Ethan was recovering at a rehab center in Newport, California that offers equine therapy & cooking classes. Tonya & Fred flew first class weekly in order to see their son & participate in group therapy. Despite the advice of doctors that he continue his in-patient rehab, they checked him out early after 62 days of treatment & brought him home. The rehab bill had reached close to $100,000 & Frank later testified that it was financially draining him.
The judge, Jean Boyd, refused to hand down the punishment sought by the Tarrant County prosecutors of 20 years in prison & instead ordered that Ethan be placed into a long-term treatment facility with ten years of probation. He was banned from drinking or using drugs during this period. She did not discuss the reasoning for her decision, but it came after the psychologist on the defense side argued that he suffered from affluenza, a term that dates back to at least the 1980s.
The public & victims’ family members were furious & many questioned if he would have gotten such a slap on the wrist had he been from a low-income family as they believed that he basically received a get-out-of-jail-free card. Some experts argued that it was part of a growing trend that a young person is given a second chance through rehab rather than charging them as an adult.
The psychologist who used the term affluenza in court had spent more than fifty hours with the Couches & found the family to be profoundly dysfunctional as it was clear that Ethan was given incredible freedoms, he had no regard for the law & his drug & alcohol use escalated as the years went by. Rather than being taught the golden rule, Ethan had been taught, we have the gold, we make the rules. Ethan likely suffered from anxiety disorder & he was constantly enabled.
Tonya admitted that they likely missed red flags as she left the disciplining to Fred & when he would take something away from his son as a punishment, Tonya would often give it right back. Much of the time, Ethan saw no consequences for his poor behavior.
The president & chief executive of the Campaign for Youth Justice, Liz Ryan, advocates for juvenile rehab since younger people are more prone to impulsive behavior while they remain capable of change. On the other hand, Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento feels disgusted with the decision, saying, just when you think our excuse-making culture has sunk as low as it can go, somebody goes yet lower.
According to one of Ethan’s attorneys, despite the fact that his particular case is controversial, it’s very consistent with most juvenile DWI manslaughter cases in Texas in terms of first time offenders. Rarely does a non-violent offender land in jail in the case of a non-intentional crime as studies show that when a juvenile is sent to jail, they tend to stay a criminal.
Eric Boyles, who lost his wife Hollie & his daughter, Shelby, feels that the judge was likely just doing what she thought was best for Ethan’s rehabilitation, but from a victim’s standpoint, she underestimated the impact. Eric says, Words can’t describe how disappointed I am in terms of how the judicial system works.
15-year-old Sergio Molina’s family were stunned by the sentence & according to their lawyer, their son is paralyzed, four people are dead & the perpetrator gets his wrists slapped. Mara Lemus, Sergio’s mom, indicated that each & every time she cares for her son, she feels pain. His brother Alex argued, You have not seen what we have to do every day to keep my brother alive. He’s doing more than 10 years probation.
After the sentencing hearing Ethan went to a facility in Vernon, Texas that was equipped with fences & guard towers & after several months he was transferred to a program in Amarillo where he took classes & rarely saw his parents. According to Fred, when Ethan did come home, as he was approaching his 18th birthday, he was filled with shame & regret, unable to speak of the crash without breaking down. He spent much of his time in bed curled into a ball.
Ethan’s reckless behavior continued after the trial when a video was released that depicted Ethan playing beer pong which indicated that he consumed alcohol which was a probation violation. This highlighted his continued disregard for the law & led to an arrest warrant that was issued on December 11, 2015 after he was unreachable by his probation officer.
By December 18, days after the arrest warrant was issued, both Ethan & Tonya were reported as missing as they remained unreachable & failed to make contact with Ethan’s probation officer. This led to a fugitive hunt that escalated to involve the U.S. Marshals Service, FBI & other agencies that held a $5,000 reward for information leading to Ethan’s whereabouts.
On December 28 Ethan & Tonya were found & arrested in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Reports indicate that before they fled to Mexico, Tonya took $30,000 from a bank account & cut ties with Fred. The duo were apprehended at a resort after a call for pizza delivery tipped the authorities off to their whereabouts. Ethan’s deportation back to the U.S. was delayed & he was held in a detention center in Mexico City. Tonya was deported on December 30 & arrested on her landing in Los Angeles. Her bail was initially set at $1 million, but dropped to $75,000 on her transfer back to Texas. She was released on January 12, 2016 after she posted bond & was required to wear an ankle monitor.
Ethan was flown back to the U.S. on January 28, 2016 & held in custody until his February 19 hearing where it was declared that he would remain on probation until 2024. On April 13, 2016 Ethan was sentenced to four consecutive terms of 180 days in jail, one for each victim in his drunk driving crash amounting to 720 days in prison.
On his release on April 2, 2018 he was required to wear an ankle monitor, an alcohol detection patch & submit to drug testing & a 9 pm curfew. He was permitted to drive with a breathalyzer installed into his car. A judge allowed the ankle monitor to be removed on March 18, 2019, but the other terms of his probation remained.
Ethan was rearrested on January 2, 2020 when he was accused of violating his probation once again after he tested positive for THC during a mandatory drug screen. He was released the following day when authorities were unable to prove if the positive test was a result of illegal marijuana or CBD oil.
Fred was charged with impersonating a police officer in North Richland Hills in the summer of 2014. The incident involved police response to a disturbance in the middle of the night & when they arrived, Fred identified himself as a member of the Lakeside police. One of the officers just so happened to have worked in Lakeside & didn’t recall him. Fred flashed a badge & he was released but the chief of the department later confirmed that he was not on the force. He quickly turned himself in, posted a $2,500 bail & walked free.
Because of the stress of the crash, Fred & Tonya split up for a second time months after the crash.
Many civil lawsuits were filed against Ethan & his parents by most of the families of victims & survivors of the crash. Some received high compensation amounting to costs in the millions. Sergio Molina’s settlement was somewhere around $2 million & will go toward his ongoing long-term care.
Ethan’s case has caused scrutiny within the fairness of the legal system & critics argue that the system shows favoritism toward wealthy defendants. It also highlighted issues in the enforcement of DUI laws & brought attention to the need for stricter penalties for DUI offenses, especially those that result in loss of life or severe injuries.
This case also highlights the importance of securing a safe ride home before a party or event that involves alcohol. If someone you know has been drinking, do not allow them to get behind the wheel of a car. Take their keys & help them find a safe way home. If you’re out on the road, please remember to wear your seatbelt to protect yourself against impaired drivers & if you see an impaired driver on the road, please contact local law enforcement.
On the night of June 15, 2013, tragedy happened in the blink of an eye that resulted in four people losing their lives, one teen paralyzed & countless others affected by the foolish & selfish choice of a reckless teen.
References:
- The New York Times: Teenager’s sentence in fatal drunken driving case stirs ‘affluenza’ debate
- D Magazine: The worst parents ever
- CBS News: For Ethan Couch’s victims, “affluenza” is no defense
- CBS News: “Affluenza” teen Ethan Couch to be transferred to adult court
- Mezrano: Tragic recklessness: The Ethan Couch accident & its aftermath
- Wikipedia: Ethan Couch
- NBC News: Case against ‘affluenza’ teen Ethan Couch moved to adult court
- Merriam-Webster: Affluenza
- Skyvue Funeral Home: Breanna Mitchell
- Yahoo News: Mom of girl killed by ‘affluenza teen’ speaks out
- Lone Star Cremation: Brian Jennings
- Thomas C. Strickland & Sons Funeral Home: Hollie Boyles
- Thomas C. Strickland & Sons Funeral Home: Shelby Boyles
- ABC News: ‘Affluenza’ DUI case: What happened night of the accident that left 4 people dead
- NHTSA: Drunk driving
- Alcohol Controls: Legal BAC limits by state
- The Dallas Morning News: A history of Texas ‘affluenza teen’ Ethan Couch & his family’s troubles with the law
