PANAMA CITY — A woman who ran over a teenager on his high school graduation trip was sentenced Monday to 11 years in prison and four years of drug offender probation on a DUI manslaughter charge.
Lee Creary, 51, was found guilty of DUI manslaughter in March in connection with the May 22, 2014, death of 17-year-old Mark Garrard Robertson. Robertson, of Louisiana, was run down at midnight by a 1991 Chevrolet Suburban and killed while walking on a sidewalk along South Thomas Drive.
Creary stuck by the claim she had been drugged and did not remember the drive that night. However, Circuit Judge James Fensom sentenced Creary to 11 years in prison Monday to be followed by four years of drug offender probation. Robertson’s friends and family had sought the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
“We do not want to live anymore,” Mark Robertson’s parents, Annette and Randolph Robertson, told the judge Monday. “We are living our greatest fear. The thought that an impaired driver snatched his beautiful body into death makes us physically ill.”
Creary wept aloud as friends, family members and classmates of Robertson echoed the cry for a maximum sentence. Defense Attorney Walter Smith pleaded for the minimum sentence, a little more than 10 years, citing Creary’s remorse following the incident, her lack of a criminal history and an insurance settlement to the Robertson family.
“She has been extremely remorseful,” Smith said. “This was an aberration in her life. … She has been a responsible person.”
Smith still contended there was something they could not explain in the trial that led to her demonstrating such a high blood alcohol content following the crash. Creary testified during her trial that as she drove from Pineapple Willy’s, 9875 S. Thomas Drive — after not consuming any alcohol — a strange feeling suddenly rushed over her.
“I heard static; then it just panned down to black, and it was silent …” Creary told jurors. “Then I saw a bright light, then darkness.”
In the five hours that ensued, during which she fought with emergency crews and police, Creary said she did not remember anything. Smith claimed Creary had been drugged with “pow-cohol,” a dehydrated form of grain alcohol, to explain Creary’s memory loss and violent behavior.
“She was involuntarily intoxicated to the point that she was legally insane,” Smith said.
Blood samples taken about an hour after the crash indicated she had a blood alcohol content of 0.258 percent; the legal limit for adults is 0.08. Prosecutors also highlighted she had methamphetamine in her system. Creary then tested positive for meth while out on bond awaiting trial.
The night he was killed, Robertson was returning to his room at the Boardwalk Beach Resort at about midnight. The honors student graduated from high school days earlier and had traveled to Florida on a senior trip. He was drinking a milkshake when an SUV traveling east toward the intersection at Alvin’s Island Department Store drove up on the sidewalk and struck him.
Robertson was drug in the SUV’s undercarriage until he was dislodged by Creary running over another curb.
Family members said he had a promising future, with plans to go to LSU.
“We all face a lifetime of heartache that penetrates our souls,” Annette Robertson said. “Mark was the best 17 years of our lives. We will never see him graduate college, marry his girlfriend or grow old enough to care for us.”
Creary faces four years of drug-offender probation to follow the sentence. If terms of the probation are violated, she could face additional prison time. Her driver’s license was permanently revoked.