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It's been three months since a drunken driving accident in Marietta took the lives of three teenagers. But the passage of days and weeks has not healed the pain for those who lit candles during a vigil Sunday night, vowing to stop drunken drivers. "I just miss having her around," said Dawn Pascoe, mother of Julieanne Pascoe, 18, one of the teens who died July 29 on Sandtown Road.

The vigil was held in the parking lot of the Masonic lodge. It was just a few steps from the scene where Sergio Montelongo-Sanchez, who had been thrown out of the Dos Naciones bar for fighting, allegedly crashed his Lincoln Continental into a Honda Civic, killing Pascoe and Christopher Shackleford, 19, the driver. A third teenager Miechelle "Kelli" Bourgeois, 19, died a few days later. Montelongo-Sanchez was charged with their deaths. He is being held in the Cobb County jail.

The accident spurred the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Georgia to begin deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants who are caught driving drunk. The policy has affected mostly Mexicans and Central Americans in Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties. So far, proceedings against 64 people have been started.

In their grief over the teens' deaths, their friends started an organization, STOP Drunk Driving (Save The Other Person), in an effort to get people to behave responsibly when it comes to consuming alcohol. During the vigil, they handed out copies of a resolution asking people to stop DUIs before they happen. The pledge can also be made online at the group's Web site.

Although their children were killed by a Hispanic man, the families stressed that their efforts were not meant to single out any ethnic group. "We need to fix the problem," said Deborah Dahlmann, Bourgeois' mother, said before the vigil. "We don't need to throw blame around . . . I want to go into Hispanic establishments and I want them to be able to say, 'We don't condone what happened, either.' "

Cindy Shackleford, Christopher's mother, said the group faces a language barrier because none of the members speaks Spanish. So far the resolution is available only in English but they hope to get it translated, she said.

A Cobb County grand jury has indicted a driver on three counts of vehicular homicide in an accident that killed three teenagers on Sandtown Road. According to prosecutors, Sergio Montelongo-Sanchez was driving drunk after being thrown out of the Dos Naciones bar in Marietta on July 29. He allegedly hit and injured a pedestrian in the bar's parking lot before speeding away. He then crashed his southbound car into a northbound Honda Civic. Three teenagers died after the crash.

The 22-count indictment was presented Thursday to Superior Court Judge Watson White. District Attorney Pat Head said the charges also include DUI, serious injury by vehicle and aggravated assault. No court date has been set for an arraignment. Montelongo-Sanchez is being held in the Cobb County Jail.

The waitress accused of serving alcohol to Montelongo-Sanchez, who was 20 at the time of the accident, has asked for a trial. Leydi Mendoza faces a misdemeanor charge of serving alcohol to an underage person. Her lawyer, William M. Clark, said a nonjury trial has been set for Dec. 13.

Should an illegal immigrant who drives drunk be treated any differently than a U.S. citizen caught for DUI?

The Immigration and Naturalization Service in Atlanta now says yes --- and it has started deportation proceedings against 64 illegal immigrants caught driving drunk.

But advocates for immigrants in metro Atlanta think that's unfair.

The deportations began this summer, after Bart Szafnicki, an INS assistant district director, read about three teenagers killed by an alleged drunken driver. Szafnicki thought about his own three teens, and when he learned the suspect was an illegal immigrant, he pressed for a DUI crackdown that touched off the deportation proceedings, mainly affecting Mexicans and Central Americans in Cobb, Gwinnett and DeKalb counties. "I thought about how I would feel if it was my child, " said Szafnicki, who lives in Gwinnett County. "Anyone who is arrested for DUI who is an illegal alien needs to go home." Why treat immigrants differently on DUI? "The native-born population in the U.S. has largely recognized the problem with DUI," Szafnicki said. "But with the new influx of immigrants, I just don't think the word has filtered down."

Teodoro Maus, Mexico's consul general in Atlanta, criticized the deportations as overly punitive for a population of mainly law-abiding and productive people. Though many are here illegally, they are unofficially allowed to stay because their labor helps the local economy. Immigrants are adjusting to different cultures and attitudes about drinking, Maus said, and many are simply unaware of the seriousness of DUI. Many of the immigrants in metro Atlanta are young men working long hours in the construction trade. "They are afraid of going out because they might get caught" as illegal, Maus said. "So they go and get drunk." When they're caught driving, they should be punished, Maus said, "but also with a very strong educational element" --- and not with deportation.

The INS began the deportations after Sergio Montelongo-Sanchez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was charged with driving drunk and crashing into a car, killing three teens in Marietta. He is in jail awaiting a grand jury appearance.

The INS had stepped up deportations of illegal immigrants charged with crimes, but DUIs were a low priority until the Marietta tragedy.

Now it's impacting illegal immigrants like Montelongo-Sanchez and Anibal Cisneros-Gomez. Gomez, 34, was charged with DUI in Gwinnett on Aug. 25. He also gave a false identity to an officer and tried to flee, Szafnicki said. He was convicted five days later and deported in September. "Anyone here illegally should be removed," Cobb Sheriff Bill Hutson said, applauding the deportation effort. "But I agree with the higher priority put toward those endangering the public by driving under the influence."

The friends of three teenagers killed in a car wreck are working to make sure the deaths were not in vain. Jacqueline Foreman and Chip O'Kelley, both 19 and full of youthful independence, pooled a few dollars, a little computer know-how and some help from friends and the families of the dead teenagers and started a nonprofit organization called STOP Inc. The name stands for Save the Other Person.

That is what they want to do, Foreman said: save others from suffering the fates of Miechelle "Kelli" Bourgeois and Christopher Shackleford, both 19 and from Woodstock, and Julieanne Pascoe, 18, of Kennesaw. The three died last summer after being hit by a 20-year-old who is charged with driving drunk. "This was pretty upsetting to us all," O'Kelley said. "We had a lot of anger toward the driver, and we wanted to focus something positive into that rather than just holding in the anger."

Deborah Dahlmann, the mother of Bourgeois, and the other parents, Kenny and Cindy Shackleford and Neil and Dawn Pascoe, encouraged the group and work with them. "They needed somewhere to send that energy that the loss of these friends created," Dahlmann said.

Bourgeois, Shackleford, Pascoe and Matthew Hunt, 24 at the time and the only survivor, were driving north on Sandtown Road in Cobb County to a friend's house July 29.

Minutes before, Sergio Montelongo-Sanchez, 20, had been kicked out of Dos Naciones bar for fighting, Cobb police said. He drove out of the parking lot in a black 1992 Lincoln Continental, bumping several cars and coming close to hitting people, before pulling south onto Sandtown Road. At the two cars approached, the Continental crossed the center line and hit the Honda Civic Shackleford was driving, police said. The wreck killed Shackleford and Pascoe. Bourgeois died four days later. The three friends are buried outside Woodstock in adjacent plots that were owned by Shackleford's parents.

Foreman said in the days after the wreck, she considered joining Students Against Drunk Driving or Mothers Against Drunk Driving. But in a burst of youthful optimism and independence, she and friends decided to form their own group. "It's not that we didn't want to work with them or to go against them. We have a lot of MADD bumper stickers on our cars," said Foreman, of Cumming. "It's just, I think they are really big." The friends wanted something more personal. They wanted control of doing the work in memory of their friends.

Robert Shaginaw, one of Shackleford's friends, created a Web site for STOP. Friends and family members pooled money, hired a lawyer and had STOP registered with the Georgia secretary of state. It has attracted 25 members.

They have spoken out at public meetings on drunken driving. Two members attended debates in Alpharetta in November, during which the City Council discussed doing away with its law requiring that anyone, regardless of apparent age, show proof of age when buying alcohol.

They are organizing a protest outside the state Capitol early next year, when legislators' debates about tightening teenage driving laws are expected to make news.

Studies have named teenagers as the most dangerous drivers on the road. The General Assembly increased restrictions on teenage drivers in 1997, including a prohibition on driving between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., but some think the laws are not enough. Sen. Phil Gingrey, who represents Cherokee and Cobb counties, wants to raise the age for getting a driver's license to 17 and put other restrictions on teenage drivers.

STOP members say they are staying focused on the drunk driving issues, especially for teenagers. They are planning a video about driving for teenagers they would like to show in schools.

Dahlmann and some of the teenage members are also taking quieter action. They have gone into restaurants and ordered drinks to see if they can get served. They don't report those that do serve them to police. Instead, they recognize those restaurants that refuse to serve them by writing a letter of congratulations to the manager.

"It takes a lot of reading, a lot of investigation, but hopefully, we can get something done," Dahlmann said.

MARIETTA — Kenny Shackleford said he holds Leydi Mendoza greatly responsible in the death of his son, Christopher.

"If she hadn’t sold him the alcohol, he wouldn’t have driven drunk and my son would still be alive," he said, referring to the waitress charged with selling alcohol to 20-year-old Sergio Montelongo-Sanchez the night he allegedly killed three local teen-agers in a wreck last July.

Ms. Mendoza, 25, was scheduled to appear in Marietta Municipal Court on Tuesday to face misdemeanor charges of selling alcohol to an underaged person. But with the prosecution unable to locate Luis Montelongo-Sanchez, Sergio’s cousin and a witness in the case, Magistrate Court Judge Roger Rozen agreed to "dead docket" the case.

Shackleford said he is frustrated with the way the case has been prosecuted. The city should hold Ms. Mendoza accountable for serving an underaged customer, he said.

"It seems to me this would set a good example," Shackleford said.

The case against Ms. Mendoza is a sidelight to the charges facing Montelongo-Sanchez, who waits in the Cobb County Adult Detention Center to stand trial on three counts of vehicular homicide.

Montelongo-Sanchez is accused of causing an accident on July 29, killing Woodstock residents Christopher Shackleford and Michele "Kelli" Bourgeois, both 19, and Kennesaw resident Julieanne Pascoe, 18. Police say Montelongo-Sanchez was drunk when he left Dos Naciones Bar on Sandtown Road in Marietta. Just a half-mile away near Booth Road, his car struck one driven by Shackleford.

Tuesday’s court date was the third time Ms. Mendoza’s case has been delayed, much to the frustration of Kenny Shackleford, the only family member of the slain teens at the hearing.

"I think this is a good resolution for everybody," said Marietta attorney Bill Clark, who is representing Ms. Mendoza. "If and when [the witness] ever shows up we’ll deal with it then."

Kenny Shackleford sat stoically in the back of the courtroom during the brief hearing, wearing a button with his son’s picture on it. He said he will continue to show up at the court hearings as the "eyes and ears" of his son.

"Every time somebody sneezes, I’m going to be there," he said.

Ms. Mendoza, however, was not at the hearing. Her attorney said his client does not speak English and an interpreter was not available.

"If I don’t have an interpreter, I don’t have a client," he said.

Immigrant pleads guilty in 3 deaths
Craig Schneider – Staff

An illegal immigrant pleaded guilty to three charges of vehicular homicide Monday in connection with the deaths of three teenagers in Marietta last July.

Sergio Montelongo-Sanchez, 21, also pleaded guilty to DUI, reckless driving, possession of alcohol by a minor, and several other charges. He will be sentenced June 22 in Cobb County Superior Court. The families of the victims have agreed to ask Judge Mary Staley for a sentence of 45 years, said Van Pearlberg, a Cobb County senior assistant district attorney.

Montelongo-Sanchez was charged with killing the three teens after he got behind the wheel after being kicked out of a bar for fighting July 29. According to Marietta police, he crashed his southbound Lincoln Continental head-on into a Honda Civic, killing Christopher Shackleford, 19, of Woodstock and Julieanne Pasco, 18, of Kennesaw. Miechelle "Kelli" Bourgeois, 19, of Woodstock died days later. After the accident, police said Montelongo-Sanchez admitted he had been driving after drinking and was the driver of the Lincoln.

The accident spurred the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Georgia to begin deportation proceedings against illegal immigrants who are caught driving drunk. In their grief, the victims' friends started an organization, STOP Drunk Driving (Save The Other Person), in an effort to get people to behave responsibly when it comes to alcohol.

DUI driver sentenced today in
deaths of three teens

By YOLANDA RODRIGUEZ
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

Three years ago Sergio Montelongo-Sanchez left the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

An 18-year-old student, he did not want to see his parents struggling to put him and two younger siblings through school.

His parents did not want him to go. But they could not dissuade him.

German Montelongo, 70, who had been to the United States when he was 17, told his son: "Be careful. Don't drink. Don't drive. Don't fight."

Montelongo-Sanchez made his way to Smyrna, where he started working in construction. Soon money, school supplies and gifts for his relatives arrived back in his hometown of Villa Gonzalez.

On July 28, his father's advice was forgotten. And the lives of four families were changed forever.

Montelongo-Sanchez will be sentenced today for the vehicular homicide of three teenagers: Christopher Shackleford, 19, of Woodstock; Julieanne Pascoe, 18, of Kennesaw; and Miechelle "Kelli" Bourgeois, 19, also of Woodstock. He could receive up to 45 years in prison.

Montelongo-Sanchez, who had been drinking illegally in a Marietta bar, crashed into their car on Sandtown Road. His blood alcohol level was .178, more than twice the legal limit. "I made a mistake," Montelongo-Sanchez said during a jail interview. He tapped nervously at the glass separating him from a visitor.

Tears filled his eyes as he recalled the fatal night.

"I have not been able to ask for their forgiveness," he said in Spanish.

"It was never my intention to cause them such hurt. . . . I see my mother suffer; they must be suffering even more."

Montelongo-Sanchez pleaded guilty last month "because I accept that it was a mistake to drink."

Christopher died at the scene. Julieanne died at the hospital. Kelli's boyfriend,

Matthew Hunt, then 24, survived.

It had appeared Kelli would survive, said Deborah Dahlmann, her mother.

But she got worse quickly. In the days that followed, she had two strokes and her brain swelled.

"She would need 24-hour-a-day care," her mother said. "She would never walk and possibly never communicate."

Kelli was taken off a respirator twice to determine if she could breathe on her own. She couldn't. The family knew what they had to do.

"They turned it off and she turned blue," her mother said. "I didn't know that would happen. I said, 'Please tell me that it doesn't hurt her,' and they promised it didn't."

Dahlmann pressed her hand against her daughter's heart.

"It was 191 heartbeats," she said.

Montelongo-Sanchez was 20 years old when he, a cousin and a friend drove up to the Dos Naciones bar. "No one ever asked me my age," he said.

Montelongo-Sanchez drank between 10 and 15 long-neck Budweisers. They danced to the house band playing rancheras and cumbias.

Late into the evening the group exchanged words and stern glances with a group of men.

Montelongo-Sanchez doesn't remember what was said. He remembers getting shoved, falling, bleeding and leaving the bar. Police said Montelongo-Sanchez tried to run several people down and hit one person as he drove out of the parking lot. He remembers seeing the men he fought with and a bouncer follow him.

He hit the curb with his Lincoln Continental and bounced into the northbound lane just as Shackleford's Honda Civic approached.

Christopher was driving. Kelli was changing a CD. Julieanne was sitting in the back seat with Hunt. They were on their way to Cherokee County to watch videos at a friend's and help Kelli do her laundry.

It was just after 1 a.m.

Dawn Pascoe paged her daughter.

"I would beep her with a '411' and she would always answer me," she said. "I'm hoping she was looking at the beeper and not at the car coming at her."

Christopher, Julieanne and Kelli are buried at Rolling Hills Memory Gardens in Acworth. Kenny Shackleford goes there almost every day. His head and heart are filled with memories of his son. "It's just him," he said. "Everything about him, everything from the first day he was born until the day he died."

Montelongo-Sanchez has asked forgiveness. Dahlmann is prepared to give it to him.

"I want him to forgive himself," she said. "I want him to know that God will forgive him."

Montelongo-Sanchez's mother prays for the strangers that she saw in court last year.

"Three children are dead, and he is in jail. I feel so sad for their children," cried Dora Estela Sanchez, 52.

Dawn Pascoe says she has never felt anger at Montelongo-Sanchez. She misses her daughter too much.

"I just feel sadness," she said. "I know that Julie is -- he sent her home. Who knows what was in God's plan that night? I don't know."

The parents said the bar is ultimately responsible for what happened. The Pascoes and Shacklefords are suing the bar owners, Armando Gaspar and Antonio Ortiz Gonzalez, and Montelongo-Sanchez in Cobb State Court. The bar owners could not be reached for comment.

At the time of the accident the Dos Naciones was operating without a license. It had expired Dec. 31, 1998.

Two months after the fatal crash, the bar was raided. Gonzalez was arrested and pleaded guilty to selling alcohol without a license. He paid a $500 fine. In October, the owners gave state officials a copy of the bar's business license from the city of Marietta, and another beer and wine license was issued.

On a recent Friday night, a bouncer frisked men entering the bar. Another took a $10 cover charge from the men and marked their right hands.

Men, young and old, gathered around tables, drinking $3 Budweisers. A handful of women charged $5 a dance. The house band played Mexican hits.

A teenager talked to the bouncer at the door. "I'm 17," she said. "But I've been here before." She and a group of friends disappeared into the darkness of the bar.

No questions were asked

MARIETTA — The families of the victims killed by admitted drunk driver Sergio Montelongo-Sanchez plan to file a wrongful death civil suit against him.

Dawn Pascoe, mother of 18-year-old Julieanne Pascoe, one of three teens killed in the July crash, said the announcement will come Wednesday morning at a press conference in Tucker.

The bar where Montelongo-Sanchez was drinking before the crash, Dos Naciones, also will be named in the suit.

On May 14, Montelongo-Sanchez pleaded guilty to 22 counts in Cobb Superior Court, including six vehicular homicide charges, stemming from a July car wreck. He could be sentenced to 45 years in prison on June 22.

Ms. Pascoe said she did not know when the suit would be filed officially, or what damages would be sought.

"I don’t know what the lawsuit says," Ms. Pascoe said. "We’ve given our attorney [Claudine Williams] carte blanche to do what they think needs to be done. The attorneys are handling it."

Montelongo-Sanchez, 21, was indicted in November for vehicular homicide and numerous other charges, including serious injury by vehicle, driving under the influence and underage possession of alcohol.

He admitted to being drunk when his black Lincoln Continental hit a Honda driven by Christopher Shackleford, 19, of Woodstock on Sandtown Road in Marietta.

Montelongo-Sanchez, then 20, was traveling southbound on Sandtown near Booth Road when his car crossed the double yellow lines and collided head on with Shackleford’s vehicle.

Shackleford was killed, along with Julieanne Pascoe, 18, of Kennesaw and Michelle "Kelli" Bourgeois, 19, of Woodstock.

A fourth passenger, Matthew Hunt, 24, survived the crash.

Montelongo-Sanchez of Smyrna pleaded guilty after Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary E. Staley allowed statements he made immediately after the accident to police into the trial proceedings.

Montelongo-Sanchez told officers that he had "too many Budweisers."

The 45-year prison term was suggested by family members, but is not mandatory in exchange for a guilty plea.

However, it is the maximum time he could serve under the plea agreement.

Montelongo-Sanchez would have to serve 90 percent of the sentence for any vehicular homicide charges before he would be eligible for parole.

TUCKER — Cindy Shackleford can remember how her 18-year-old son, Christopher, worried about not living as long as he wanted.

"He was always concerned about Jesus coming back too soon," said Ms. Shackleford of Woodstock. "He would always say, ‘Mom, I’m only 18, what if Jesus comes back?’"

Her son was one of three teen-agers killed in a tragic drunken driving accident on Sandtown Road last July, when Shackleford’s Honda Civic was struck by a black Lincoln Continental driven by Sergio Montelongo-Sanchez, then 20.

Montelongo-Sanchez had been drinking at the Dos Naciones Bar about two miles away on Sandtown Road and had been kicked out of the bar just minutes before the accident.

Also killed in the accident were Julieanne Pascoe, 19, of Kennesaw and Miechelle "Kelli" Bourgeois, 19, of Woodstock. Matthew Hunt, 24, of Marietta also was in the car and suffered numerous injuries, but survived.

A week after Montelongo-Sanchez pleaded guilty in Cobb County Superior Court to killing the teens and now could receive 45 years in prison, the parents of Shackleford and Ms. Pascoe have filed a civil suit in Cobb County State Court against him and the two owners of Dos Naciones bar, Armband Gaspar and Antonio Ortiz.

Although the suit does not seek a dollar amount from the defendants, all involved say that’s the way it was intended.

"There is no dollar amount to bring back a child," said Claudine S. Wilkins of The Wilkins Law Firm, which, along with Hertz, Link & Smith of Tucker, is representing the families in the suit.

"It’s the cause itself. We’re not concerned with [dollar amounts] right now. This behavior by the bar itself has got to be deterred."

At a press conference Wednesday attended by family members of Shackleford and Ms. Pascoe, Ms. Wilkins, former Cobb County solicitor, said waitresses at the bar continued to serve Montelongo-Sanchez Budweiser beers after he was "visibly drunk."

A Polaroid picture of Montelongo-Sanchez was taken the night of the accident at the bar that shows him sitting at a table with several long-neck Budweisers in front of him, she said.

"This establishment has been very lax. Even after this [accident] happened we got some information that they continued to serve underage drinkers," she said.

The suit, filed Tuesday, names Montelongo-Sanchez but clearly targets the Dos Naciones bar. It states that Gaspar and Ortiz negligent in hiring the persons who allowed Montelongo-Sanchez to enter the bar when he was 20-year-old, too young to consume alcohol legally.

The suit also says the owners of the bar should have known the people they hired were incompetent and "unable to perform their job duties in an ordinary and reasonable manner."

The suit accuses all three defendants of willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantoness, oppression, and asks for punitive damages from Gaspar and Ortiz. Ms. Wilkins said Wednesday that Dos Naciones was not licensed to sell alcohol on July 29, the date of the accident.

Gaspar and Ortiz, who could not be reached for comment, have been in trouble with the law before in relation to the accident. The Georgia Department of Revenue raided the bar in September and confiscated 4,220 bottles of beer, shutting the bar’s doors for selling alcohol without a license.

Ortiz was taken to jail for the offense. However, he renewed his license in December and the bar was reopened.

The waitress who served the alcohol to Montelongo-Sanchez, Leydi Mendoza, 25, was charged with selling alcohol to an underage person and was to be prosecuted in Marietta Municipal Court. But with the prosecution unable to locate key witnesses in the case, Magistrate Court Roger Rozen agreed to "dead docket" the case.

This has been another source of frustration for the families, along with the behavior of certain other persons, whom Ms. Wilkins could not identify, at the bar the night of the accident.

Montelongo-Sanchez was in a fight at the bar and was kicked out by three bouncers there. Ms. Wilkins and Eric Hertz, who is also representing the families, believe the bouncers should have taken his keys or called the police instead of chasing him out of the parking lot, as they say the bouncers did that night.

"This bar is very poorly run," Ms. Wilkins said. "It should not be open. There are four families who have been greatly affected by their negligence."

The parents themselves have started an organization called Save The Other Person (STOP), which targets drunk drivers and is attempting to raise awareness among young people. Kenny Shackleford serves as president and the Web site address is www.STOPDD.org.

Jessica Pascoe, 22, who lost her younger sister in the accident, said the pain becomes more real as time goes by.

"My big thing is choices," Ms. Pascoe said. "In this situation, all the wrong choices were made." But Dawn Pascoe, Julieanne’s mother, said she does not feel anger.

"I have sadness. Anger toward Sergio, anger toward the bar is not going to bring Julie back, bring Chris back, bring [Miechelle] back," she said.

Ms. Shackleford said she and her husband do feel a bit of anger.

"It’s righteous indignation. But our son is gone. And yes, we are angry. We are angry at the system that failed us, and my husband is more angry at Sergio than I am."

Kenny Shackleford ended the press conference with a warning.

"If there’s a drunk driver out there listening to me, I want him to know one thing, that I am his worst enemy," he said.