A Parker man was sentenced for a 2014 drunk-driving crash that killed two Monument teens. Marshal Douglas Gregory, 18, was sentenced to four years in the Youth Offender System. He later pleaded guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide-DUI.
I wrote the following story after the tragic accident when I was working at the Tri-Lakes Tribune and it ran in several affiliated Douglas County newspapers at the time.
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail
Two Palmer Ridge High School students were killed and two others were taken to a hospital with injuries early Labor Day morning after a one-car accident that happened on Hodgen Road, near Roller Coaster Road.
Two of the passengers, identified as 17-year-old Beau Begier and 18-year-old Ryan Pappas, both were pronounced dead at the scene.
A second 17-year-old passenger, Mitchell "Jack" Clark, suffered serious injuries and was transported to a local hospital via air ambulance. He was still in Penrose-St. Francis Health Services Hospital on Friday, listed in "fair" condition.
The driver, 17-year-old Marshal Douglas Gregory, from Parker (former Palmer Ridge student), was wearing his seatbelt and suffered minor injuries. After he was released from the hospital, he was taken into custody.
The Colorado State Patrol sought vehicular homicide and vehicular assault charges against the driver, according to a news release, and he was formally charged in a Friday court appearance.
In that same appearance, juvenile court Magistrate Denise Peacock announced that he would be tried as a minor and released into his parents' custody with a court-ordered tracking device required. That tracking device is to be provided by Parker Police. Restrictions of no driving and remaining under adult supervision at all times, also were applied.
The driver, was taken by ambulance to Penrose-St. Francis Health Services hospital in Colorado Springs. A passenger in the car was flown by helicopter to the same hospital, said Trooper Nate Reid, spokesman for the Colorado State Patrol. The crash happened just after 1 a.m. Monday, (Labor Day, Sept. 1) morning.
"A 2009 Cooper Mini convertible was traveling eastbound on E. Baptist Assembly Road at a high rate of speed when the driver failed to stop at a stop sign at Roller Coaster Road. As the vehicle crossed Roller Coaster Road, it became airborne. It then lost control and spun off the north side of the road, through a ditch, and a grove of trees until it came to rest on its wheels," says the release from the State Highway Patrol.
The CSP report says the teen driver appears to have driven through a stop sign at 80 m.p.h. in a 40 mph zone. The car hit a bump in the road and went airborne for nearly 60 feet, bounced, went another 65-plus feet airborne, bounced again traveling airborne nearly 40 feet. then crashed through a fence and into a tree.
"The Cooper’s driver, a 17-year-old male from Parker, was wearing his seatbelt and suffered minor injuries. He was transported to a Penrose Main for treatment. After being released from the hospital, the driver was arrested and taken to a juvenile detention facility," the initial release said.
"Two of the Cooper’s passengers, identified as 17-year-old Beau Begier of Monument, and 18-year-old Ryan Pappas, also from Monument, were pronounced dead at the scene. Begier was not wearing his seatbelt and was ejected from the vehicle after it collided with the trees. Pappas was wearing his seatbelt and remained inside the vehicle, but suffered fatal injuries as well.
"A third passenger, a 17-year-old male from Monument, (Mitchell "Jack" Clark, as later identified) was wearing his seatbelt and remained inside the vehicle, but suffered serious injuries as a result of the crash. He was transported to a local hospital via helicopter, where he is being treated for his injuries," the early CHP report said.
The four teens in the crash were all suspected of drinking alcohol prior to the crash. "At this time, alcohol use and high speed are considered to be factors in the crash, which remains under investigation."
Gregory is scheduled to appear in El Paso County Court again Oct. 6, for a pre-trial conference.
The following account appeared several years later in "A Light in Dark Places" in (Douglas County School District publication 9/14/2017)
PUEBLO - Labor Day weekend wasn’t supposed to be like this. In 2014 Legend High School student Marshal Gregory took the long weekend to party with his friends in Monument. They had too much to drink and were involved in a car crash that killed two passengers and seriously injured another. He is now serving time at the Youthful Offender System in Pueblo. He wants to share his story in hopes of convincing kids like him to make safe decisions.
“I always tell him that I think that he’s meant to be a light in dark places,” says his mother Jackie Souverein. She makes the two hour drive from Parker to visit her son every other week or so. “And that’s why dark things sometimes happen to us.” These words aren’t always easy to process for Gregory. “How do I go about my life and make it meaningful for what had happened? I don’t know how I do that,” he wonders.
“There was a lot of things I did wrong that led up to it,” he admits. “My mom and my stepdad had gone up to the mountains for the weekend.” After work he joined up with his friends at a party. “A lot of people are drinking. A lot of people are smoking. I instantly start smoking. That was probably the first thing that I did.”
“At some point Beau comes up to me and he’s like ‘Man all the girls left.’ Like the girls that he was talking to left and I was like ‘ok.’”
Gregory left with his longtime friend Beau Begier. They met up with friends Ryan Pappas and Jack Clark at a Park and Ride in Monument. Their mission was to go find the girls that had left the party. This meant going to the house of some other boys. “We pretty much got denied. We got told that we can’t come in,” recalls Gregory.
“Now I’m drunk, angry, and driving.” The four boys from the party returned to the car and started driving. “It wasn’t even like, ‘yeah I’m gonna take the quickest way and go right back to the house,’” Gregory said. “It’s like - ‘I’m gonna drive fast and go for a little joyride almost.’”
In his drunk and high state, Gregory remembers Pappas saying “slow down.” That’s when he went through a stop sign at the intersection of Roller Coaster Road and Baptist Road. “It was over. I had no control.” He had hit a bump. The car went flying and landed in a ditch amongst the trees of the Black Forest.
When he got out of the car he dialed 911. He was hysterical as he tried to communicate with the operator.
“Oh my God!”
“Marshal can you hear me?”
He looked at his friend Beau lying on the ground. “And after knowing this kid for so long, I just…knew that he wasn’t there anymore.”
Life These Days
After a difficult trial he ended up at the Youthful Offender System in Pueblo, Colorado. That’s where spends his time reflecting. “There is no way to make it right.
There is nothing that I can do to that’s going to make this better. There’s nothing that will make the families feel better.”
He receives encouragement from his mom. She faithfully visits him about every other weekend. “I've always been proud of Marshal, but I would say this transformation I’m really proud of who he’s become,” says Souverein.
Gregory knows he has made progress. “I feel like I have accomplished so much more being sober in these past three years than I did my whole high school career. I don’t have any ambitions to drink. I don’t have any ambitions to smoke. If I could take back anything from the night it would be the drinking and the driving.”
As his mother gets up to go back home for another two weeks Gregory continues to have time to reflect on that weekend that didn’t end the way he planned. “You gotta think about what you really want to get out in life. And you gotta realize that you don’t need anything else but you to get there.”
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