Mother describes being told her sons had died in wreck

The brothers were headed to college when their car hit an FBI agent's car. At issue is who was headed the wrong way on the highway, the sober brothers or the agent who had been drinking.

©Associated Press
October 17, 2002

FORT LAUDERDALE -- A woman broke into tears and gasped loudly Wednesday as she testified about being told her sons were killed in a head-on highway collision while going the wrong way.

Investigators reversed that conclusion under pressure a month later and charged an FBI agent with drunken driving manslaughter in the deaths of Maurice Williams, 23, and his half brother Craig Chambers, 19.

Their mother, Florence Thompson, was among the opening witnesses at the trial of David Farrall. He could face 30 years in prison if convicted in the November 1999 crash.

Thompson was adamant and vocal that her sons -- a youth minister and a member of his church choir -- were not at fault in the crash.

Thompson and Williams' wife went looking for the men in the middle of the night when Maurice Williams was supposed to be driving Chambers to college. Farrall was supposedly headed home in the same direction.

Thompson was diverted off Interstate 95 at the crash site and stopped to ask about the accident. Thompson gave her sons' names and the model of the car to a Florida Highway Patrol trooper.

"He said to me he was sorry, my boys didn't make it," Thompson testified before breaking down. "He said they were driving the wrong way. . . . It was on TV for a month, a whole month, that they were driving the wrong way."

Prosecutor Michael Horowitz told jurors in opening statements that they might hear about mistakes and allegations of conspiracies, coverups and racism. Farrall is white, and the victims were black.

"Look at the science in this case. The science can't changed based on your color, your race or occupation," Horowitz said. "There's no way that two sober young men were driving the wrong way."

He insisted the scientific evidence would prove Farrall was the wrong-way driver and two blood alcohol tests processed by different labs would say he had a 0.14 blood alcohol level, nearly double the amount at which the state presumes impairment, 0.08.

Expert testimony about accident reconstruction and blood alcohol tests is expected to be a major part of the trial, which is expected to last more than a month.

Defense attorney Bruce Udolf disparaged the "defective" prosecution evidence and said the FHP was right the first time. He promised four witnesses would describe a light-colored car, like the one driven by the victims, heading in the wrong direction.

Udolf acknowledged Farrall, a 300-pound bodybuilder and former two-time national powerlifting champion, was out drinking for three hours on the night of the crash with a co-worker. He has been fired.

Farrall, 39, drank all but three glasses from two pitchers and a pint of beer over a three-hour period, but Udolf said he was not intoxicated, was not legally impaired and was legally sober.

Udolf said there were 15 to 25 minutes missing from the crash victims' timetable and hinted they turned around on the highway to help a motorist who was walking for help after his transmission failed.

He questioned whether jurors could trust evidence from the accident scene after other vehicles drove over it and debris from a third vehicle was found there.

Udolf called the wreck "an unexplainable, un-understandable accident."

The men's relatives are suing Farrall, the FBI, FHP and the bar where he drank, for $50-million.

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