ALFRED — With family and friends looking on, a 40-year-old nurse was led from the rear of York County Courthouse to a waiting sheriff’s office transport van Thursday, on her way to serve eight years in prison for driving drunk on the Maine Turnpike and killing two people when her sport utility vehicle slammed into their limousine.
Driver James McLaughlin, 65, and passenger Cooper Campbell, 15, were killed instantly. Cooper Campbell’s father, Steven, sustained serious injuries. It was dark and raining that April 28, 2008 night and Donna Bartlett, having consumed most of a 1.5 liter bottle of wine, was driving south in the northbound lane.
Bartlett, of Wells, had originally pled innocent to manslaughter, aggravated criminal drunk driving and a host of other charges. She changed her plea to guilty Thursday and was sentenced by York County Superior Court Justice G. Arthur Brennan.
Assistant District Attorney Brian Roberts said Bartlett brought two bottles of wine to a gathering at a friend’s house and drank all but one and one-half glasses of a 1.5 liter bottle of Pinot Grigio by herself.
“She drank throughout the evening,” Roberts said. The friends shared pizza. Bartlett left at 10:20 p.m. The homeowner said Bartlett didn’t appear drunk, but she offered to call her husband or have her spend the night. Bartlett declined. At 10:30 p.m., Bartlett’s husband called and said he’d tried his wife’s cell phone but couldn’t reach her. He called again a second time. At 11:56 p.m., Bartlett entered the turnpike the wrong way. At 11:59 p.m., calls about a wrong-way driver came flooding into authorities.
Roberts said Bartlett drove five miles the wrong way on the turnpike. Maine State Trooper Philip Bartlett used lights and sirens to try and get her attention and stop her, to no avail. She apparently missed some vehicles and sideswiped others along the way.
What stopped her was the crash. A test taken at 12:50 a.m. showed a blood alcohol reading of .19, more than twice the legal limit of .08.
Bartlett has a previous history of drinking and driving: She tested .12 following a 1989 crash and .19 in 1992, the latter 16 years before the fatal crash.
The courtroom Thursday was standing-room only.
Steven Campbell, a widower who lost his wife to cancer a few years prior to the crash that took his son, said he and his Cooper were on their way home in the limousine after landing at Logan Airport following a vacation. Cooper was asleep but woke up at the Hampton, N.H. tolls. Cooper told his father, “I love ya, Dad” and Campbell replied, “I love you too.” Cooper went back to sleep.
It was their last conversation.
“Donna Bartlett took a car and slaughtered my son,” said Campbell. “The only thing that stopped her was (the crash) and the bones of James McLaughlin and Cooper Campbell. I believe Donna Bartlett is a menace and I am concerned that she’ll do it again. God help us.”
“The world doesn’t feel quite so safe without my Dad,” said Alyson Knox of her father, James McLaughlin.
“Jim was my true love,” said Lorraine McLaughlin of her husband, James. “I miss him so much every day.” She said McLaughlin didn’t live to see his youngest daughter, Jessica, graduate from high school or mark other family milestones. “You stole that all away,” she said to Bartlett.
Donna Bartlett’s husband, John, told the court his wife didn’t intend to hurt anyone. Her father, Francis James, described his daughter as a warm and loving wife, mother and daughter who has shown remorse.
“All we can ask of the court is to show mercy,” said Francis James. “I pray you’ll consider all that is good in her.”
“We love you and always will and we will always stand by you,” he said to his daughter.
A tearful Bartlett addressed the court: “There are no words to express my complete remorse for what I have done,” she said. “I am a good person who made an error in judgment I cannot reclaim. I am prepared to take responsibility ”¦ to say I am very, very sorry does not even come close to what you want to hear from me. I think of Cooper and James and both of your families every day.”
Bartlett pled guilty to two counts of manslaughter, two counts of aggravated criminal driving under the influence, aggravated assault and two counts of reckless conduct. In total, she was sentenced to 25 years in prison with all but eight years suspended, and six years probation with conditions, including that she not possess a driver’s license, not drink or use illegal drugs, have no contact with the families and that she perform 200 hours of community service.
Roberts said he and defense counsel John Webb agreed that eight years incarceration was a just and appropriate sentence, and while Brennan could have chosen a different term, he agreed with the attorneys’ analysis of the situation.
“This whole month has been the saddest month I have ever spent in this building and I have been here 30 years,” said Brennan, referring to both this case and others. “It is frankly incomprehensible what possessed Donna Bartlett to drive the way she drove that night.”
He urged the McLaughlin and Campbell families to temper their anger.
“You have every reason to be angry. For some people that might be all-consuming,” Brennan said, noting that healing can come, with time.
“Donna Bartlett will need a lot of support, and she will carry this with her forever,” he told her family.
— Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 or twells@journaltribune.com.
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