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As she lay near death, his grief was for his car

Witnesses say a man sentenced in a vehicular homicide case stroked his car after the collision.

By JAMAL THALJI
Published June 9, 2007

Luis Alonso Lopez's mother reaches out to him as he is led back to the holding cell at the West Pasco Courthourse after emotional testimonials during his sentencing Friday afternoon.
	[Times photo: Julia Kumari Drapkin]

NEW PORT RICHEY - In the dark, Kerri Lynn Norkus was losing blood and hope.

She was badly injured, pinned inside her Kia Spectra.

"I was never so scared in my life," she told her father, Wayne Norkus, in the hospital. "I was trapped inside the car and there was no help."

Especially not from the driver who slammed into her head-first at twice the speed limit. The driver who, according to witnesses, was too busy kicking at metal scraps on the road to help.

No, witnesses said, Luis Alonso Lopez's grief was focused elsewhere that night:

His crumpled 2001 Pontiac Trans Am.

"Look at my baby," Lopez, then 21, told a fire captain as he stroked the crushed hood.

Norkus, 33, died two days later.

And Lopez came to court Friday to answer for what he did -- and didn't do -- that July 29, 2005 night.

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Here at the courthouse they are common ingredients: youth, alcohol and speed. The results, too, are commonplace: death, remorse and prison.

Circuit Judge William Webb found himself weighing all of them on Friday.

Lopez pleaded no contest in May to vehicular homicide. He was driving between 60 and 67 mph on a 30 mph stretch of Perrine Ranch Road, Florida Highway Patrol said, when about 3 a.m. he crossed into Norkus' lane.

He was at a bar. She was coming home from her night shift at a St. Petersburg call center.

An empty 24-ounce Coors Light can was found in his center console. But Lopez passed a field-sobriety test. He was not charged with DUI. Still, he faced up to 15 years in prison.

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The state witnesses who would describe Lopez's behavior after the crash were to testify at the end of the hearing. So defense attorney Keith Hammond tried to soften the blow.

Lopez had no prior criminal record. He earned a Bright Futures Scholarship out of Mitchell High School. He studied computer engineering at the University of South Florida and worked part time. He dreamed of a career in robotics.

"He has a God-given talent," father Lupe Lopez said, "that he was bent on using to improve himself."

But after Norkus died, Rachel Lopez said their son was withdrawn, almost lost.

"I take offense when they say he has no remorse," she said, "because that is very far from the truth."

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The state had its own truths:

Lopez had tickets for speeding, running a red light and driving without insurance. He has a selective memory. He doesn't remember seeing Norkus' car. Or if the beer was his. Or what he did after the accident.

"Did you hug your car after this crash?" prosecutor Michael Harris asked. "Were you stroking your car? Petting your car?"

"I don't remember doing that," Lopez said.

But a fire captain, a paramedic and a Pasco deputy all testified that he did.

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Then Wayne Norkus spoke.

His daughter worked hard, owned her own home in Holiday and cared for her dying mother.

"What makes this so hard, your honor, is that I only have two children in my life," he said, his eyes wet, "and both were killed by alcoholic drivers."

Son Keith died a decade ago, the father said, crushed by a drunken grader operator in Tallahassee. He was 24.

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Webb then made his decision.

"By all accounts you had a promising life ...," the judge told Lopez. "Before this night you conducted yourself responsibly.

"On this night you conducted yourself miserably and irresponsibly."

The sentence: 10 years in prison and no more driving.

Afterward, Lopez's father apologized to Wayne Norkus. Norkus reached out to Lopez's mother.

All three wept. Luis Lopez, though, did not.

[Last modified June 8, 2007, 21:43:24]