Drunk driver ordered to carry coffin photo

updated 12:20 p.m. ET Jan. 14, 2004

BUTLER, Pa. - A woman who was drunk when she killed a man in a head-on collision must carry a photograph of the teacher in his coffin as part of her five years of probation, a judge ruled.

Jennifer Langston pleaded guilty in September to vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving.

Prosecutors said Langston was drunk and talking on a cell phone in June 2002 when she crossed the center line and hit a pickup truck carrying Glenn Clark and his pregnant wife, Annette. He died, his wife remains in a coma and their son, born by Caesarian section five months after the crash, is being raised by relatives.

A judge sentenced Langston to 30 days in jail, plus house arrest and probation, and ordered her to carry a picture of Glenn Clark.

But when Clark’s mother provided the photo of Clark in a casket, Langston, 27, objected. Her attorney said the “spirit of the agreement” was that the photo be of Clark when he was alive.

“This makes no sense to me. Requiring Jennifer to carry a picture like that defeats the whole purpose if the purpose is to look and remember,” said Langston’s attorney, Michael Sherman. “Who in their right mind will look at such a picture?”

Butler County Judge George Hancher ruled Tuesday that Langston would have to carry the coffin photo.

Clark’s mother, Rosellen Moller, has been unapologetic.

“That’s where she put him — in a casket. That’s what she did for him. I’d just shut my mouth if I was her,” Moller said.

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