Tragedy leads to book for kids

Writing helps the son of a wealthy attorney cope with a fatal crash.

By COLLEEN JENKINS, Times Staff Writer
Published December 24, 2007

When he was 16, Gable Yerrid, son of prominent Tampa attorney Steve Yerrid, was in a Bayshore Blvd car accident that killed the young mother in the other car. Now, at 20, he has published a children's book that he says was inspired by his experience.
	[Carrie Pratt | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Carrie Pratt | Times] The book, entitled Marley's Treasure, is about sharing, and Yerrid says the accident forced him to learn to share his feelings to get through the emotional pain it brought. He wrote the book for his younger brother.

TAMPA - In the grimmest hour of his teenage life, when a woman was dead and his speeding car partly to blame, Gable Yerrid withdrew from the people who love him.

He found comfort in journals, filling 15 to 20 notebooks in just a few months.

Marley took shape on those private pages.

Now the fictional monkey is the central character in Yerrid's new children's book, Marley's Treasure. It's a tale about a monkey who thinks he's found happiness in a bunch of golden bananas but learns true joy when he decides to share.

Yerrid, too, has learned things about himself in the aftermath of his highly scrutinized car crash.

After years of shunning the spotlight, the 20-year-old son of one of Tampa's wealthiest attorneys is preparing to take the monkey and his message of sharing to bookstores and schools across the country.

He shifts in his chair and tugs at his loose-fit jeans as he considers that prospect.

"I'm nervous," he admits.

Some people may never get past this image of Yerrid: The 16-year-old rich kid. His speeding Cadillac Escalade. The August 2003 crash on Bayshore Boulevard that killed Nancy Christine White Bradley - a nurse and mother - as she tried to make an illegal turn.

Yerrid walked away with a broken leg and a civil citation for unlawful speed involving death. Some of the woman's family wondered, loudly, if Yerrid's father's money got him off easy. One of her brothers, Drew White, was particularly dogged about seeking punishment.

During an interview this month, it was clear that the crash left Yerrid wounded in ways outsiders never saw.

Four years later, his lip quivers when talk turns to the accident that turned his privileged life on its head.

"I didn't know what to think about myself," he said. "I was torn up. I didn't know where to go."

People shook their heads at him, he recalls. Said "horrible things." He didn't want to drive, especially on Bayshore.

His family and a close circle of friends pulled him through those difficult months, he says, convincing him it was okay to share the confusing emotions he felt.

But he needed something more to forgive himself.

The tears spill when he recalls how Bradley's husband and young daughter, who received an undisclosed sum in a settlement with the Yerrids, agreed to meet with him about a year after the accident. Alone on the dock behind his mother's South Tampa home, Yerrid told the little girl he was sorry.

Facing her, he said, "was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, for sure."

The birth of his half-brother Mason four months after the accident inspired Yerrid to add a simple story line about sharing to his notebook doodlings of a little monkey living in paradise.

He showed it to his dad, attorney Steve Yerrid, who has won millions from personal injury cases and Big Tobacco.

"I was just profoundly moved he had been able to create such a thing," Steve Yerrid said.

The elder Yerrid pitched the story to Yorkville Press, the same New York-based company that published his own book. He had been on the second stop of a book tour when he got the call about his son's accident.

Steve Yerrid paid artist Jennifer Fitzgerald, formerly of Tampa, now in Napa Valley, to create the book's engaging watercolor illustrations.

Barnes & Noble, Borders and Books-A-Million have committed to carrying the book. Starting next month, Gable Yerrid will take time out from his studies at the University of Tampa to travel to New York City for the first stop on his national book tour.

It helps to have family wealth to kick start your dream. But the Yerrids plan to give some of the book's proceeds to a new charity called Marley's Fund, which will help children's causes under the umbrella of the Yerrid Foundation.

Gable Yerrid seems excited about the possibilities he may write a sequel, if not a bit taken aback by all the fuss. He's anxious about public speaking and children's reactions and his signature not being ready for autographs.

As for the family who once had unkind things to say about Yerrid and his father, he need not worry about their reaction.

The victim's mother, Winnie White, said she was thrilled to hear that Gable Yerrid was using his talents to help other people.

A few minutes later, her son Drew called back. We all do stupid stuff, he said. If he could talk to Gable, he would tell him he was glad something positive came out of something so tragic.

"I'd shake his hand and tell him good job," White said of the book.

He's said he'd even like to read it.

Colleen Jenkins can be reached at cjenkins@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3337.

[Last modified December 23, 2007, 20:06:22]