Sheila Lockwood of McHenry became an ambassador for Mothers Against Drunk Driving after her son Austin was killed in a single-car crash caused by an impaired driver. Lockwood recently spoke with reporter Maureen McKinney about the loss of her son. She has worked for the passage of laws including one in Austin's honor that replaced the word ‘accident’ from impaired driving reports in exchange for ‘crash’ and the HALT Act, which requires national safety standards for passive, advanced impaired driving prevention systems on all new vehicles. This is an edited, excerpted version of that conversation,
Sheila Lockwood:
On June 10, 2018 a drunk driver took my oldest son, Austin. He had just turned 23 years old. He had gone up to Wisconsin with this person to help him clean up a summer cabin, family cabin, and repaid my son for his kindness by taking his life. It's like four hours away from us so I had two police officers come to my home at about 5 a.m. on Sunday morning, telling me that Austin would not be coming home.
Tell me about what happened.
Austin was a passenger in the vehicle. This person driving was almost double the legal limit. He was driving approximately 70 miles an hour in a very narrow, winding tree lined road up in northern Wisconsin. The speed limit on that road went anywhere from 30 up to 45 so at that point, he was going at least probably double the speed limit, and he lost control of the vehicle and slammed the passenger door into a tree, crushing and killing my son instantly.
I'm so sorry. Did the driver survive?
He had a scratch on his forehead. He was to be for the next 18 months with absolutely no consequences. He went back to Michigan and finished out his college degree because apparently, he didn't realize that he might be going to jail, I don't know, but he went to Michigan. He finished out his degree. I was watching this on Facebook. They had a big celebration. How proud they were of this person that had murdered my son, and he proceeded to party and celebrate and do all kinds of things up until October 10, that following year, when he was sentenced to three years in prison.
Did that make you feel any better?
No, absolutely not, because he's already out. He's on probation, but I know he's breaking his probation. There's really nothing that I can do about it. I've tried reporting it. Initially, the state of Wisconsin had recommended 10 years probation, and I was not having that, that that almost nearly destroyed me. I started getting a hold of people. We sent over 80 impact letters to the judge, and we fought as hard as we (could) to make sure that they did some jail time. He ended up doing prison for three years, so at least that was something.
He's never shown any remorse for what he did. And there's not a day that goes by that we don't feel the impact of Austin not being here. It's destroyed every single part of our lives because we're missing one of the most important people in our family, and Austin's now got a nephew that he'll never get to meet. The little little boy looks at pictures and says, unk. He's only a year and a half old, but he knows who Austin is, and he'll look at pictures and say, unk, he will never get to meet Austin And Austin, you know, will never get to play a part of this little boy's life. He is named after Austin. His name is Lucas Austin.
I know it's hard, but I would love to hear about the kind of person Austin was and what he was up to at the time of his death.
Austin was the kid that would never allow anyone to sit alone. I was reached out by many of his classmates, male and female, after the crash, saying that in middle school, when … it was their first day of school and they were new, Austin approached them in the cafeteria, befriended them because he saw them sitting alone. He was the one that if he saw a neighbor doing something and they look like they needed help, he'd run over and start helping them.
At one point, I got a knock on the door after work by a neighbor, and he had $40 in his hand. And I said, What is this for? And he goes, what happened? And he said that he was cutting branches off a tree in his yard, and had gotten some big branches down and actually fell off the ladder and went to get checked. And in the meantime, I guess my boys, Austin and Landon, saw, went over, finished cutting the branches down and hauled them to a pile. In our backyard where they could use our burn
pit. The neighbor came over and wanted to give the boys money because of their kindness.
He had just graduated from college. He got all of his welding certifications along with his brother. They both did the exact same classes at the exact same time and got the exact same certifications. They worked together. They played together. They went to school together. Austin's brother is only 15 months younger than him, and never knew a day in his life without Austin. Austin was only 16 months younger than his sister, so the three of them actually went to high school together and did everything together when they had significant others, the six of them would go out.
Austin and Landon both graduated from college approximately 15 days before Austin's life was taken. We had just moved to the house that I'm in now, 43 days before Austin was murdered, it was always our dream to live on the water. And, all three kids had finally finished high school and finished college. And I said, ‘Well, now's the time to move. I knew that they would soon, you know, be moving out and having their own homes and families. Living on the water was a dream for Austin. He had a boat, and he was able to put that boat on the lift in our backyard and be right on the water. He took the bedroom that faced the water. He was so excited, but he only got to live in this house for 43 days. It was everything. It was everything to him. It was everything to us.
I haven't touched a thing in his room. When he left to go up that weekend, I had just washed all of his bedding, and obviously it's been washed now several times because we've had company. And I do use his room when people come because they that's where, like an aunt would she would come, and when he was here, that's where she would sleep. But his room, all of his clothes are folded and put away in his drawers and hanging in his closet like he should be coming home.
Which of your children has the child?
Morgan, my daughter. She's actually my second daughter. I lost my first daughter to SIDS. That's Taylor, and she would have been 32 so it's 32, 31 almost 30 and then almost 29 But Morgan, I was married a couple years ago, and then that following July, had Lucas.
There must be a great joy in your life,
He is everything to me because I look at him and I know that there's a piece of Austin in him, and I feel like I just want to be like Austin, so somehow Lucas can know he knows who his uncle is, and he loves his other uncle, too. So it's really cool. (He’s) very happy, very smart and very full of energy.
So I just think it's really important that we reiterate that these statistics are people, they're not numbers, and how important each and every one of these individuals that are impacted by impaired driving are. And how the ripple effect, it never stops. I think we're into, like 2,500 days ago that Austin was taken from us, and nothing's gotten better. We have just learned how to get through each day. And I just think it's really important that people understand, no one walks away from these types of preventable crimes, the same pieces of our lives are destroyed, and whether the victim lives, they may still be dealing with medical issues so their lives aren't the same, either losing not loved one, whether it's a parent or a friend or losing a child, took everything away from me, and it took everything away from his siblings because of the closest that they they would they were. It took their futures away and and destroyed everything that they had ever planned.
You know, my son, Landon has struggled so much now, Austin was supposed to be the godfather to his children. They were trying to find a house together and live together and be together, you know, with their significant others, maybe later in the picture. But I think it's just really important to understand that these numbers are really high. They're higher than they've ever been, and it's preventable. People need to be aware that because marijuana might be legal in your state, it's not legal to drive after you've used it, so it impairs your judgment and impairs your driving. It is aso impaired driving. People are losing their lives because of this, and it's really important to if you're going to partake in any type of, you know, drug or alcohol -– legal, because we definitely don't want anybody doing things that are illegal — but to do it responsibly
