Bob and Kathy Connell live on their ranch just outside
Crockett, Texas. Around midnight on a cool October night
a few years ago, four of their children—Allen, Laurel, Lee,
and Sara Jo—were driving home from a church party in Centerville,
Texas, following a Friday night high-school football game. About
seven miles from home, a local man, impaired with alcohol and
drugs, crashed into their car head-on at seventy miles per hour and
murdered them all. Kathy and Bob received that most feared of all
phone calls just after midnight. Let me tell you about their four
children who were killed, in Kathy’s words from the victim impact
statement used in connection with the conviction and sentencing of
their killer.