Parents’ grief serves as warning to others
Couple who lost daughter hope her face will serve as a reminder of crime
BY DAVE BENJAMIN
Staff Writer

Over the past four years more than 300 people have been arrested in Manalapan and charged with driving while intoxicated.

“It works out to an average of 78 people a year and out of that number 49 were underage drinkers,” Police Chief Stuart Brown revealed during a Jan. 25 meeting at town hall. “That’s about 16 percent of these individuals who were stopped and subsequently arrested for drunken driving. They were under the age of 21; under the age to drink in New Jersey.”

Brown said he hopes a billboard that shows a picture of Kimberly Smith Ames, 23, who was pregnant at the time a drunk driver killed her in Beachwood, Ocean County, in 1998, will get the attention of those underage drivers as well as others who drink and get behind the wheel of a vehicle.

“Oct. 7, 1998, was the worst night of our lives,” said Carol Smith, Kimberly’s mom. “I hope none of you ever have to deal with anything like that. It’s something you don’t forget. I was in the kitchen at the counter and Kim came down to go out. She was standing at the table and I just looked over at her and I thought, ‘God, she looks beautiful.’ She had her hair all twisted up and I just looked at her in admiration.”

Carol said her daughter looked out the window and was teasing about her dad, who was outside with her puppy.

“She was laughing and giggling,” Smith said. “Little did I know that would be the last. Kim left the house and would never come back.”

Carol was on the phone when the horrible news came.

“I heard a knock on the door, looked out and saw a cop standing there with my neighbor,” Carol said. “I looked at his face and I just knew.”

Ed Smith, Kimberly’s dad, said, “My daughter Kimberly was a beautiful young bride who was married in June and was killed in October of that year. Her wedding song was played at her wedding and played again when we had to bury Kim.”

Ed said the tragedy is something his family will never get over, but he hopes his daughter’s beautiful face and smile will impact other people so that they do not have to go through what his family has had to go through every day since the accident.

“The guy who killed Kim blew through six stop signs yelling ‘hee, ha,’ ” Ed said. “He never put on his brakes. He was on drugs and alcohol. He had no license and no insurance. He was on the run. He tried to run down a sheriff’s officer in Florida. He had a criminal record a mile long. There were witnesses. One was a state trooper and another was the wife of a police officer.”

The man was arrested and charged with aggravated manslaughter. Facing a possible term of 30 years upon conviction, he agreed to plead guilty and was sentenced to 13 years in prison, Ed said. His recent request for a shorter sentence was rejected by a judge.

“Kim was three months pregnant when she was killed, and the night she was killed we had to go to the trauma center in Neptune,” Ed said. “We were told she wouldn’t make it through the night. She was on life support.”

Ed said he had to call Kimberly’s sister, who was serving as a naval officer in Japan. He also called a second sister who was a teacher in northern New Jersey and a brother, who was a naval officer stationed in Washington, D.C.

“All her sister wanted to do was to get home from Japan before Kim would leave us and she couldn’t do that,” he said. “That was the hardest. I prayed to God that he would take me instead of my daughter, and obviously that didn’t happen.

“We not only are hurting for the loss of our daughter, but we’re hurting for [our children’s] pain because we can’t stop the agony they are going through,” Ed said. “Over time the pain slowly [decreases], but it always comes back and we have to deal with it ... we will probably have to deal with it for the rest of our lives. So please, if you’re going to go out and drink, make sure there is a designated driver who hasn’t been drinking that can drive. Don’t get in a car with someone who has been drinking. Do yourself that favor so that you won’t have to go through the difficulty that we go through.”

Monmouth County First Assistant Prosecutor Peter Warshaw agreed that drinking and driving is an issue of great concern.

“There is no issue which is more significant than the issue of addressing drinking and driving and taking steps to educate the public as to this issue,” he said.

Warshaw, the former director of the prosecutor’s homicide unit, reviewed every fatal motor vehicle collision which occurred in Monmouth County over the past 11 years.

“During that time it was my duty to meet with many families who had been victimized by drunk drivers who caused fatal motor vehicle collisions which killed innocent people,” Warshaw said. “Families react in many different ways and in their grief you see some families, as we see here today, with the courage to move forward and try to turn their horrific loss into something positive for the community in which they live.”

Warshaw said he hopes the billboard with Kimberly’s picture will help to get the attention of just one person who will make a different choice, because they have seen, read it and were educated by it.

He said that in Monmouth County in 2004 there were more than 2,700 arrests for drunken driving. In 2005 there were 69 fatal motor vehicle collisions, which resulted in 73 fatalities.

“A full quarter of those resulted from alcohol or drug abuse. We must do everything we can to stop this,” Warshaw said, noting that drunken driving cuts across all social and economic classes. “If you drive drunk in any municipality in Monmouth County, there is a price to be paid.”

Lisa Harmon, a licensed clinical alcohol and drug counselor, said, “Whenever I’m down in Toms River and I pass by the billboard of Kimberly, whomever I am in the car with, I speak to them about it. Parents have asked me how they can speak to their kids about [drinking and driving]. There it is. It’s out there for you.”

Three signs with Kimberly’s picture have been placed in Manalapan and will be moved periodically to get the word out about drinking and driving, she said.