My name is Teresa Incontro, and I am the children's stepmother....Today I face you for the first time knowing very little about you. All I know is that you chose to drive after drinking the night of March 15, 2002, and because of that choice, you have changed our lives forever.

I want to tell you what it was like the night you crashed head on into the car my stepchildren and stepgrandson were in....

My husband, the children's father, Ricky Incontro, Sr. was at the work release center located just off Abbott Drive. Twice a month we'd all gather together and go shopping for four hours. We had gone shopping that night to celebrate Nick's birthday. We treasured the time we spend together and made the most of every minute.

...Lisa had said to the kids before we walked their dad into the work release center to say our good-byes, "Whoever stays out her with Tyler in the car so we don't have to take him out of the car seat gets to sit in the front when we leave." Rose said, "I will." She then jumped out of the car and flung her arms around her dad, gave him a big hug and a kiss and told him she loved him and was so proud of him. That was their last hug.

A few minutes later we were southbound on Abbott Drive. I was following the kids. I saw you cross the line coming straight at them. Lisa's brake lights went on, and she swerved as far to the right as she could, but she couldn't get out of your way. It all happened so fast. When I seen your headlights cross into the kids' lane, I started screaming, "Oh, my God, there's headlights coming straight at the kids. Oh, my God, they're going to hit the kids. Oh, my God, they hit the kids." The vehicle you were driving had just hit our kids head on with such an impact that the kids car catapulted, all four wheels leaving the road. Your vehicle went into flight also and came down on the front passenger side of the car the kids were in and flew backwards at least one and a half car lengths.

I jumped out of my car and went running to the kids' car. What I seen no horror story could ever match. I ran to the driver window and seen Lisa gasping to breathe. Her eyes kept rolling back into her head. The airbag was touching her chest. Every second that went by, her skin color became more gray. Nicholas was yelling and moaning in pain. He had been thrown from the backseat of the car through the dashboard and windshield of the car. He kept screaming, "My leg, my leg." He was trying to get his face out of the dashboard and position his leg to no avail so it wouldn't hurt so badly.

...I had people searching for Beth. They kept asking me, "Are you sure there's another child?" I asked them to start looking past the concrete barriers thinking that maybe she had gotten thrown from the car. I tried to keep reassuring Nicholas and Lisa that help was coming.

With the help of some of the passersby, we were able to get the rear passenger door open to see how badly Tyler was hurt. He seemed okay. Then I saw Beth. Her entire head and torso were shoved under the front seat of the driver's side. She was wedged between Tyler's car seat and the front passenger seat. We had to somehow get Tyler's car seat out of the car so we could get to Beth. All I could see of her was the back pockets of her jeans and her legs. We got Tyler's car seat out of the vehicle. It took three of us to get the car seat undone from the seatbelt and to get the chair restraints to open. I picked him up and never set him down until we reached the stretcher in the emergency room.

I tried to think of what to do for Beth. I couldn't get her pulse on her ankle. I prayed to God pleading with him to please not allow her to die. I ran to the front passenger door that somehow -- About that time, one of the passersby said the girl in the front passenger seat's breathing was very shallow...There was blood coming out of her ears, nose, and mouth...This child that I loved so much was dying, and I couldn't even hold her in my arms one last time to comfort her because she was so entwined in steel and dashboard. The engine of the car was shoved into her lap. I kissed her and prayed that the ambulances would get there before it was too late. Then she stopped gurgling. There were no more moans. She had stopped breathing. I begged God to intervene and not allow her to die too.

Tyler was such a little trooper through all of it. I never tried sitting him down. I don't know if I was more comfort to him or if he was more comfort to me. He still seemed okay. I went to the from passenger side and reached across Lisa to keep touching Nicholas so he would look my direction and not at Rosey. Nicholas kept saying, "What's wrong with Rose? Teresa, Rose isn't talking."

I kept trying to reassure him everything was going to be all right, but I knew it wasn't. It was far from all right. I kept praying, "God you're bigger than all of this. You've raised people from the dead. Please, God, don't let them die." Lisa continued to go in and out of consciousness. By the color of her skin, I knew she had internal injuries. Would she make it until the ambulance got here?

...The rescue team arrived after what seemed hours. I directed them to Beth first. They took her out from under the seat and four men lied her on a stretcher. She was alive. Her face looked like hamburger, but she was still alive. "Oh, thank you, God," I said...

Next they took Lisa out of the driver's seat. Her skin color continued to become grayer with each minute. She was conscious and mumbling words. I followed the rescue workers to the ambulance that they had put both Lisa and Beth into. They said a few words to each other, and I told hem to hang on, and as soon as the rescue workers got Nick and Rose out, I would be right there, and that they were making arrangements to get their dad to the hospital, that their mom would be there shortly. I told them I loved them and to stay strong. They said I love you too.

About that time I heard what could be described only as an animal-like wail, and I went running back to the car. They were getting Nick out of the car. The only noise I could compare to the moaining and screaming Nick was making due to the pain was one that I had heard a few times in my life, the sound a horse makes when they break a leg.

They loaded Nick into the second ambulance, and I ran next to him continuing to tell him they were taking him to the same hospital where they took Lisa and Beth. I kissed him on the forehead, told him I loved him, and said I would be there as soon as they got Rose out of the car.

I ran back to the car, and the rescue workers were all just standing there blocking me from going to Rose....waiting for the jaws of life to arrive to enable them to get Rose out of the car.

The media was there televising live. I begged them not to do that. I didn't want any family members to learn of this atrocity over the TV. The rescue workers picked me up and sat me with Tyler on my lap in the front passenger seat of the ambulance as they were loading you into the back of the same ambulance. When we reached St. Joseph's Hospital, the TV in the emergency room was already showing the crash scene. Tyler wasn't able to stand as they removed his pants, and I could see his leg was broken.

...I was standing next to Ricky Jr. with my arm around him. He turned to me and asked what happened. I told him there had been a terrible wreck, that the kids had been hit head on after we dropped his dad off from the shopping pass. Ricky Jr. asked with a fear in his eyes I'd never seen before, "What about my brother and sisters?" I started crying again and said that Lisa, Beth, and Nick were all at University Hospital in critical condition. I said, "Honey, I'm so sorry, but Rosey died at the scene." Then Ricky Jr. was hysterical. I put my arms around him trying to comfort him, and he collapsed to the floor on top of me sobbing, "No, no, no," and punching the floor.

A security work from St. Joseph's Hospital drove me over to University Hospital...I saw a doctor come out of Nick's room, and I asked what the extent of his injuries were. The doctor told me Nick's right leg was badly broken, but he thought they could save it. He would be going into surgery in the morning, and that he had cuts on his forehead that were going to have to be sutured.

I then asked him about Beth and Lisa. He said Beth had sustained severe trauma to the face and there was blood accumulating on the right side of her head. She had one broken arm and one arm that was cracked, but not broken all the way through. He said they didn't know if they could save her....right eye because of the extent of the trauma to the right side of her face. She was split from the middle of her forehead to the top eyelid. He said she would be going to surgery the next morning too.

The doctor said as far as Lisa's injuries were, they knew she was bleeding internally, and she was in x-ray at the time having a CT scan. He said Lisa had three broken ribs and a punctured lung, and that they had put a chest tube in enabling her to breathe. A little later we learned her liver was lacerated.

They moved the kids to ICU. The police officer asked if I could give him a statement while things were still fresh in my mind. I asked him of the condition of the other driver. He said that you had a few stitches on your forehead and a bruised sternum. I asked the officer what happened, that you had to have seen that you were headed straight towards our kids' car. Then the officer told me that alcohol was involved. He said that your blood alcohol level was over the legal range.

It was bad enough before, but now it became worse. It didn't have to happen. I can't explain the rage I felt at that moment. Once again I had to take more horrible news to the family. I can't explain the pain in the family's eyes when I broke the news to them that you were drunk.

... The days and weeks that followed were filled with funeral decisions, and the tremendous healing process that kids had ahead of them -- that we all had ahead of us. I have days when I'm numb and can't feel anything, and then I have days that I can't stop crying. None of us will ever be the same again. Life as we knew it before the crash will never return.

I still have night mares of the crash. I go about tearing the room apart looking for the kids. It's like it's as real as it was March 15. I have no idea how long it takes me to acclimate back, to realize it was just another nightmare. I'm in counselling and being treated for post-tramatic stress disorder and depression. We've been forced by you to live on memories and pictures. That's just not right. You still have birthdays and Christmases. You'll have the opportunity to get married and have children. You have the opportunity to go to college. You've taken all of this from Rose.

Today, January 7, is my husband's birthday. Some days he hopes you get the electric chair. Some days he doesn't care what they do to you because nothing they can do to you will ever bring his Rosey back or give the kids back what they went through physically. Nothing they do to you will make Nick's leg grow. Nothing will give the kids back their sister. All brothers and sisters have a bond, but what those five children had between them went much further than a typical bond. The relationship they have goes way deeper than that.

I think that you know you're going to prison and probably for a substantial amount of time. I hope you get some help in there, that you take advantage of the programs offered, and to come out of prison a better person than you were when you go in.

Mr. and Mrs. Tadlock, my sympathy goes out to you as parents, for in some respects, you're losing a child too. The relationship you share with your son now will change drastically. May God help you.

Mr. Tadlock, nothing is going to undo what you have done. I trust the judge to determine your sentence.