Fontella Hooper turned to face the courtroom gallery as she, for the first time, addressed the family most affected by her decision to drink and drive the evening of Sept. 21 — a decision that cost a woman her life and left another with lifelong injuries.
“Honestly, I know this is long overdue,” Hooper said speaking directly to the surviving victim, Jodalee “Cush” Wakeman, and her family. “There’s never a day that goes by that I don’t think of your family or say a silent prayer for your family.
“I would trade places if I could,” she later added.
Before speaking her piece, Hooper, 31, of Vancouver pleaded guilty in Clark County Superior Court to vehicular homicide while driving under the influence and vehicular assault. She was sentenced to more than nine years in prison.
Hooper ran a stop sign when turning from P Street onto East Fourth Plain Boulevard in Vancouver, turned into oncoming traffic and hit a Dodge Caravan driven by Wakeman. Wakeman’s sister, Kimberly Makarowsky, was a passenger in her vehicle and sustained critical injuries. She died at a hospital three days later.
Responding officers said that Hooper’s breath smelled of alcohol, her speech was slurred and repetitive, and she needed help to stand, court record state.
The prosecution said Hooper was driving with a suspended license and that her blood-alcohol content was 0.20 more than two hours after the crash. In Washington, a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 is considered evidence of drunken driving.
Hooper, a single mom, told the court Friday that she had just gotten a new job and was out celebrating.
“I must have celebrated too much, because that night became a blur,” she said. She apologized profusely to the victims’ family, as well as her own who was present.
However, she acknowledged that “sorry will never be enough.”
“What I did was selfish and wrong,” Hooper said. “It was never my intention to hurt anyone.”
Hooper asked the court if she could hug Makarowsky’s 19-year-old daughter, Megan, but was told no because of her in-custody status.
Earlier in the hearing, Megan Makarowsky read a statement to the court detailing her mother’s injuries, which included a broken neck and crushed skull.
“The body lying in the hospital bed resembled nothing of my mother. My mom was the strongest woman I knew, and it broke my heart to see her that way,” she said.
Her mother never regained consciousness and was taken off life support after three days in the hospital.
“It angers and saddens me that I never got a proper goodbye,” she said.
Wakeman also presented a statement, but it was read on her behalf. In her statement, she wrote that, among her injuries, she suffered a traumatic brain injury, crushed ankle, broken pelvis and compression fracture of her spine. She required immediate surgery.
“I was in shock, and my body was fighting for my own survival. This meant that I never got to say goodbye to my sister — my only sister. I never got to see her again,” she wrote.
Wakeman was in a wheelchair for five months, she wrote, and must now use a walker or cane while getting around.
A statement on behalf of the family was also read to Hooper, urging her to turn her life around.
“Our hope is that you can own up to your mistakes, learn and grow as a person in prison, and find a way to do good in the world upon your release. There are many ways for you to do something right with your life: speak out against drunk driving, be a good parent, volunteer in your community. We are hopeful that your life lesson of bad choices — and our life lesson of pain and loss — will find a way to prevent others from having to go through this process,” the statement read.
Hooper’s attorney, Josephine Townsend, burst into tears as she asked Judge Robert Lewis to sentence her client to the low end of the range: 95 months. She said Hooper has no prior criminal history and was taking responsibility for her actions. The prosecution had asked for 120 months.
Lewis told the courtroom that cases like this are devastating for everyone involved, before settling on a mid-range sentence of 110 months.
After the hearing, Megan Makarowsky said that despite wanting the judge to sentence Hooper to the maximum sentence, she was comfortable with the outcome.
“I feel relieved that this whole process is over,” she said. “When (Hooper) stood up and addressed us, I felt it was sincere.”
