The judicial curtain has been drawn on a tragic case in which a mother driving drunk caused a car crash that killed her son and the mother of two other young children, but the emotional wounds and the memory remain.
Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Carmody on Monday sentenced Elizabeth Diver to 6 months in Cook County jail and 4 years of probation on two counts of reckless homicide.
Diver of Orland Township had a blood-alcohol level of 0.297, nearly three times the legal limit in Illinois, when the car she was driving crossed an eastbound lane and crashed head-on into a car driven by Paula Fernandez, 36, of Orland Park on Feb. 9, 1996.
The accident occurred about 7 p.m. on 143rd Street near Ridge Road while Diver was taking her son, Luke, 12, to a band competition.
Luke and Fernandez were killed.
“She has given more punishment to herself than I could ever give her,” said Carmody in imposing the sentence Monday at the Bridgeview courthouse.
“It was tragic on both ends,” said Mark Besbekos, assistant state’s attorney. “A woman killing her own son. . . . It doesn’t get much more tragic than that.”
The first year of Diver’s probation will be under intensive supervision with a curfew. Diver also is required to see an officer of the court five days a week. During the probation period, Diver will not be allowed to drive. Carmody said he will recommend to the secretary of state that she never be allowed to drive again.
Besbekos recommended a term in the penitentiary.
“He had to wrestle with a lot of tough facts in this case,” Besbekos said of Carmody. “What kind of sentence can you give a woman who killed her own son?”
Besbekos said Diver has said she is attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and has not taken a drink since the accident.
In a victim-impact statement, Jaime Fernandez, the husband of Paula, said any sentence would not make a difference as he struggles to raise his children, ages 6 and 11, without their mother.
Diver was a choir member at St. Michael’s Church in Orland Park. Her pastor and fellow choir members had urged leniency.
“We are not sentencing Diver for her activities at church,” Besbekos told the judge. “We are not sentencing her for the way she raised her children. We are sentencing her because she got on a public street drunk and killed two people.”
