A Fairfield man whose driver’s license was revoked for life after a 1996 drunken-driving crash that killed three people is again appealing to get his right to drive reinstated, alarming families of the victims.
A hearing for Bryan Carrier, 39, before an examiner at the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles is set for Monday in Augusta. It is Carrier’s third appeal since the accident, which resulted in the deaths of Arlyce Jewell, 42, her 10-year-old son, Alex, and Elbert Knowles, 15.
The families and friends of the people killed that night say if Carrier’s license was revoked for life, it should mean just that.
“Wounds have been breached,” Pamela Hare of White Mountain Lake, Arizona, Knowles’ aunt, said via email.
“Again we have to be reminded of that horrible accident 20 years ago,” she said. “As Bryan is attempting to appeal what was handed down to him back then, not a day goes by our family doesn’t think about the loss of Elbert. And the reason for his appeal is for his convenience? When we have been inconvenienced every day with the loss of Elbert? I don’t think he should ever drive again, and believe the sentence handed down to Bryan should remain regardless of how it affects his life.”
Carrier, then of Skowhegan, pleaded guilty in 1997 in Somerset County Superior Court to three counts of manslaughter and three counts of aggravated operating under the influence.
Carrier’s blood-alcohol level after the crash was 0.11 percent, over the legal limit for driving of 0.08 percent. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison with all but two years suspended, six years of probation and 2,000 hours of community service on the manslaughter convictions. For the OUI offenses, Carrier was sentenced to two years in prison to run at the same time as the manslaughter sentence and ordered to pay $6,000 in fines.
He was released on March 30, 1999, from the Charleston Correctional Facility.
Carrier, who was 19 years old in November 1996, drove a pickup truck at high speed through a stop sign on East Ridge Road in Skowhegan and slammed into a van heading east on U.S. Route 2. Royce Jewell Jr., Arlyce Jewell’s husband, was injured in the crash that killed her and Alex.
Knowles was a passenger in the pickup. Another passenger, Nicole Johnson, then 17, was seriously injured.
In a statement to be submitted to the hearing officer in his appeal, Carrier wrote that he completed his 2,000 hours of community service volunteering at the soup kitchen in Skowhegan. He said he still works at the family business and is married now and has two children.
“I deeply regret the loss of lives due to my poor choices,” Carrier wrote. “I live with shame and remorse for my actions and not a day goes by where I do not feel terrible about the choices I made that night nearly 20 years ago. … I cannot imagine the pain I have caused to the families involved. I have tried to work through this shame in counseling but the reality is that I will never be able to forgive myself for what I did.”
Carrier declined an interview request and referred questions to his attorney, Walter McKee of Augusta. McKee said his client’s license reinstatement request is not a matter of fairness, but an effort on the part of Carrier to return to being an active member of society.
Carrier previously had appealed for reinstatement of his license to a hearing officer with the state BMV, but was denied. A formal appeal before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in December 2012 also was denied. An appeal for a pardon before the Governor’s Board on Executive Clemency was filed in 2013 but later withdrawn by Carrier.
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