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Road to recovery
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On a windy February morning in 2001, Sheryl Maloy Davis traveled west down I-90, past the same stretch of road where her nightmare began. She was on her way to have a face to face meeting with Audrey Kishline.
Dennis Murphy, Dateline correspondent: You make a decision to go see her.
Sheryl Davis: I made that decision the day Danny and LaShell died.
Sheryl had been preparing for this confrontation for months. Audrey was bracing herself.
Audrey Kishline: I see them come in. You know, they’ve already been through all the checks and stuff. We’re brought into a glassed-in room where the guards can completely watch us, but can’t listen.
Davis: And I looked at her lawyer. And I asked, I said, “Is it okay if I hug her?”
Kishline: And all of a sudden her arms were around me, and my arms were around her.
Murphy: And you expected perhaps a slap across the face.
Kishline: That’s what I was expecting when she—but when she touched me, and I was gonna try to say, “ I’m sorry,” I got the—“I am,” she goes, “Audrey, I forgive you.” Now those were the very last words I ever ever expected to hear from her, out of her lips.
Murphy: She was the person that drove drunk and killed your daughter. Didn’t you have every reason to say, “How dare you be a drunk driver?”
Davis: And what good does that do? If you don’t forgive somebody you’re going to live with that turmoil for the rest of your life.
Murphy: What impression did you have of her?
Davis: She’s a very quiet person. Very—she was very remorseful. She cried the whole time.
Murphy: Did you need to hear her sorrow for what had happened?
Davis: If she was going to say she was sorry, I needed to see that she meant it.
Murphy: And not in a courtroom kind of setting, huh?
Davis: Yeah.
Murphy: Did you hear it? Did you see it?
Davis: Yeah. She meant it.
When their meeting was over, Audrey felt she could actually start the long, slow process of forgiving herself.
Kishline: I felt like I was walking on air. The one person in the world who could forgive me, the one person it would mean the most from who could forgive me was Sheryl.
Geting released and the tough days that lay ahead
In August of 2003, after completing 3 1/2 of her 4 1/2 year sentence, Audrey was free to go.
Kishline: Now I’m with my two kids, finally. You know, we can hug, we can roll around on the floor. We can joke, we can laugh, we can do things that we couldn’t do for all those years.
But soon, Audrey found the adjustment to family life too painful to endure. An abyss had grown between her and her husband and children. While in prison, she’d hardened her heart against missing her family and now she was unable to thaw it. Her family distrusted her.
Kishline: When I got out of prison, I tried to reconnect with my family. And it actually was a failure. I had become another kind of Audrey.
Audrey had gone 3 1/2 years in prison without drinking and now that she was on parole she was forbidden to drink for two more years. But one desperate night, Audrey walked into a liquor store and fell into the clutches of alcohol again. A worried friend she called that evening contacted her parole officer.
Audrey was sent back to jail. Her sentence was just 42 days but her life with her family was ruined.
She recalled a pact she had made with her young son Samuel during her first prison sentence.
Kishline: Every night in prison, I’d tell him, “Okay, 8:00 p.m., look up at the moon and I’ll look up at the moon at the same time so we’ll both be lookin’ at the moon at the same time.” You know? And then promising him I’ll be home within 997 more days, or however many. All those promises.
Murphy: And then home didn’t work?
Kishline: And I come home, I blow parole. I leave the family again.
An unlikely friend
Audrey was now living alone in Portland, Oregon. When her parole was over in August of 2005 she made a decision to reach out to someone: not a family member or a counselor but to of all people... Sheryl Maloy Davis. It had been 4 1/2 years since their prison meeting.
Kishline: And so I called her. I said, “This is Audrey.” And she—“Audrey. Hello! I’m—I’m glad to hear from you.” And then the conversation just went from there.
Davis: We talked about everything. We were on the phone for hours.
Kishline: She had me get down on my knees and we prayed together. And I just balled my eyes out. Here’s this woman, five years she hasn’t heard a word from me. I’m still in forgiveness from her. She hasn’t taken that back.
Years earlier, as part of a civil suit settlement Sheryl had requested that Audrey write a book, a kind of first-person warning about drinking and driving. Audrey had no idea whether Sheryl still wanted the book written, whether she’d be willing to dig up the past in the process.
Kishline: I didn’t think she’d be wanting to do it. But she does.
They decided to write the book together. It is called “Face to Face.” Working on the project brought Audrey deep into Sheryl’s world, into a place where she’d have to confront the loss she caused head on. Last winter she attended Sheryl’s bible study group where she was introduced in a way that summed up their unusual connection.
Sheryl (at Bible group): This is my friend Audrey. I’ve never introduced her before as my friend. Six years ago I would never guess she’d be my friend. Fact I was positive she wouldn’t have been my friend. So just for those of you who don’t really know much about either one of us, Audrey is the woman who killed Danny and LaShell.
Audrey visited Sheryl’s home where she met her 10-year-old son Cody.
Davis: Cody, this is Audrey.
Cody: Hello (without looking up)
Kishline: How you doing?
And she pored over dozens of photographs of Danny and LaShell.
Davis: Here’s when she was a little baby.
Kishline: Oh my God. Oh Gosh Sheryl. Oh.
Davis: Oh, god. How old—how old was she?
Davis: 12.
Kishline: 12. Was it two weeks before or after her birthday?
Davis: Ten days.
Kishline (to correspondent Dennis Murphy): Seeing those pictures of her daughter, you know, all different poses. Going through them.
Murphy: And you’re the architect, you’re the prime mover of this awful sadness, this tragedy that’s happened. How awkward is that for you?
Kishline: Now all I can do is do what Sheryl has asked me to do. That’s the only way I can give back. All I can do is try to help her as much as I can. I can’t take back that day. I can’t bring back her daughter. I can at least listen to her wishes.
Which brings us back to that difficult journey Audrey is taking along the freeway that crosses Washington state.
Kishline: What I am feeling now is a lot of fear. Just a lot of fear.
Sheryl has asked Audrey to return to the crash site where their lives first intersected.
Davis: We’re going to the last spot my daughter and her dad were alive. They took their last breath there.
Sheryl has been back only once before.
Audrey has never been back.
Kishline: I think it’s something I have to do. I think it’s a part of what I have to do.
Davis: Coming here is like a form of closure.
Sheryl has shown unwavering forgiveness to Audrey, but on this day she is struggling with complicated emotions.
Davis: You wanna know how I really feel right now? I’m mad that my daughter and her dad had to die so senselessly. Doesn’t mean I don’t forgive her. It just—I wish things could be different.
When the women meet at the site their conversation is at first striking for its matter-of-fact tone.
Davis: You turned around, you went off the road on this side. You did a figure eight and you came back out.
Kishline: It was that last turnoff. That’s where I just saw that, yeah.
Davis: Danny didn’t have hardly any time to see anything, because it’s on a bend. He was behind a semi. And the semi pulled out of your way and you hit them.
Kishline: Wow.
One mother describing to the other how she killed her daughter.
Audrey’s been told some of the accident details before... but hearing them from Sheryl is now here, it’s too much for her.
Kishline: Oh Jesus. (Hugs Sheryl)
Sheryl allows for some anger—albeit a brief showing.
Davis: I was mad for a little bit on the way here.
Kishline: Were you?
Davis: Yeah.
Kishline: I’m sorry you’re angry.
Davis: Huh?
Kishline: I’m sorry you’re feeling angry.
Davis: Oh, I’m not angry. I was angry for a little bit on the way here.
Kishline: That’s normal.
Davis: But I’m not angry.
Chance at a new life
Audrey is trying to make a life for herself. She sees her children only a few times a year but speaks to them every week. As a convicted felon it took her months to find a job, but she finally landed one at a dry cleaners. She walks 35 minutes to get there. Legally, driving is not an option—not now. But Audrey says she will never drive again.
Kishline: I believe I’ve lost the privilege to drive for the rest of my life. And I won’t drive.
Murphy: You walk to work. Past all the malls up the road. You could go into Safeway and buy a bottle of California red. Is that a temptation you have to fight?
Kishline: Every day.
And after all she’s been through does Audrey Kishline founder of Moderation Management still think her program can work?
Kishline: I have very conflicted feelings about that. Obviously it was something that didn’t work for me.
Murphy: It still exists. There are chapters around.
Kishline: The book’s still on the Internet.
Murphy: Do you think people read it at their own peril? Is this something you disavow now?
Kishline: You know, whether you read my book or you walk by 7-11 and see the bottle of wine, temptations are always out there. You know, I clearly said in that book that if you’re abstinent now or you’re a chronic alcoholic, this book won’t work for you.
Murphy: Do you still believe a person can be a moderate controlled drinker?
Kishline: As long as they’re not truly an alcoholic.
Murphy: But what’s that line?
Kishline: Nobody knows where it is.
Including Audrey Kishline. And now she wants everyone to hear her cautionary tale loud and clear.
Murphy: You’re in the free world but you’re still in a kind of prison, aren’t you?
Kishline: Yeah. The message to the drinker out there, who doesn’t think that they might get in a car and drive drunk when they go into a blackout, needs to really hear this.
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