Delays in judicial system frustrate grieving families
Related content:
> Continue reading this article
> Read part one of the two-part series
> Photos | Access our free archives for past articles
Monday, March 24, 2008
URBANA — The plates on the smashed Ford Taurus spoke more loudly than any press release.
Jin "Jack" Bian's car served as the communal wheels on a campus where few of the two dozen Chinese students own cars. They even knew the plate numbers. So their hopes sank as they saw the footage on the 11 o'clock news and recognized the plates on the crumpled vehicle.
Extras
"We all started weeping," Donghai "John" Zhao, one of the three surviving roommates, recalled from that night of March 8, 2007.
The final confirmation came in the middle of the night from the Ohio State Highway Patrol: Bian, 27, and Bing "Jo" Xue and Yan "Zoe" Sun, both 24, died instantly in the nine-car pileup at Urbana and Moorefield roads.
"This is not fair!" the students protested. "They were just sitting at a stoplight."
Susie Sassenberg, a counselor and student development specialist, asked if the students wanted to call home, to let their parents know they were safe.
"No," they finally told her after noisily conferring among themselves. "They would be so worried and might force us to come home."
In keeping with Chinese custom, the victims' roommates set up a temporary shrine, displaying photos in the home they all shared and lighting candles day and night until the families arrived to take over this sacred duty.
Over the next 12 months, there would be a more serious clash of cultures between the victims' native and adopted countries.
Their parents, schooled by the swift justice of the Chinese courts, still struggle to come to grips with an American legal system that had allowed the man who caused the crash, Jason Skaggs, to drive again after his reckless driving killed two people in 1994.
They don't understand why it took nearly six months before he was arrested. And they're frustrated by the changing court dates. Skaggs' trial, originally scheduled for February, was rescheduled for July 23, making it difficult for the families to attend the trial on their limited budgets.
"In China, the only child is the only hope of their parents," Zhao said. "If the parents lose their child, the parent will die."
Bian often thanked his mother, Tiejuan Cai, for supporting his dream of studying in America. "Don't worry about me," he would assure her. "I promise I will come back, make money and take care of you when you are old."
