tennessean.com
NASHVILLE, Tennessee -- By pleading guilty as expected today in a Nashville courtroom, Gustavo Reyes Garcia could end the criminal case stemming from charges that his drunken driving killed two people last year.
But the court appearance is unlikely to sate the firestorm of hostility toward illegal immigrants that galvanized after his June 8, 2006, wreck on Old Hickory Boulevard.
Garcia, 29, is charged with driving drunk when his SUV slammed head-on into a sedan driven by a Mt. Juliet couple, killing them both.
After the crash, authorities revealed that Garcia — a citizen of Mexico in the U.S. illegally — had been arrested at least 14 times before, including four times for driving drunk.
The tale of government inefficiency that allowed him to remain in Tennessee after so many contacts with law enforcement fueled public outrage and changed the social landscape for other undocumented immigrants in the Midstate.
“It was the case that brought to our attention ... the flaw in the system,” Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall said.
Related Story below from Nashville City Paper
This story claims that Gustavo Reyes Garcia was previously arrested 17 times before killing Donna Lynne Wilson, who was celebrating her six-year anniversary of having beaten breast cancer. Sean Paul Wilson, Donna's Husband was pronounced dead at the scene.
Shortly after the accident, Nashville Metro Police fatal crash investigator Carey Steel arrived at the scene.
Steel quickly received word that the passenger of the Buick had been taken to the hospital. The driver, who was already dead, was still trapped inside the wreckage of his vehicle.
Steel turned his attention to the driver of the SUV, who was sitting in the driver’s seat being treated for lacerations to his face.
But what struck Steel was not the man’s injuries – or lack thereof, given the force with which the vehicles collided – but what he said was the “extreme odor of alcohol coming from the vehicle.”
He looked past the driver to the floorboard, where he saw four 24-ounce beer cans, an empty beer bottle and a large quantity of spilled alcohol.