Think Before You Wink
Grand Island Substance Abuse Coalition
219 W. 2nd Street
Grand Island, NE 68801
(308) 385-5520

Working together with:
Hall County Sheriff's Office
131 S. Locust Street
Grand Island, NE 68801

Project Coordinator:
Randy See
coordinator@thinkb4uwink.com

My name is Lee Hazen. This is the story about my daughter, Jocelyn Bohrer, who was killed by a drunk driver at age 16. 

October 20, 2000 started out as a beautiful Fall Indian Summer day. It was Friday, and the kids had a day off from school due to teachers conferences that week, so they could all sleep in. 

I came home for lunch, checked the phone messages: there was a message from the mechanic who had been putting in a new transmission on my daughter, Joci’s car, it was ready! I went in search of her to ask her if she got the message & found she was in the shower. We talked through the door, and she sounded so excited-she had already made arrangements to have a friend take her to pick it up. You see, she had bought the car nearly 2 months before, but before her 16th birthday on Oct 1, the transmission went out, so she hadn’t gotten to drive it by herself yet. She was so proud of that car, an 87 Ford t-bird, she found it on her own, paid for it on her own (including getting a bank loan for part of it under her own name), arranging for the mechanical work and even helping pull the transmission out-she wanted to learn how to work on it herself. She had a credit card, 2 jobs and she was an honor student who had just had a perfect report card that week. She was on top of the world!! 

Joci’s brother, Brian, who was18 then and had graduated that spring, was at work at O’Reilly’s Automotive. Her 14 year old sister, Katie, wasn’t home because she had gotten up early to go visit her old teachers at Walnut and have lunch with her friends. 

My husband, Gordon, and I came home after work, and were sitting in the family room when Joci came flying in with her boyfriend’s younger sister, following behind. She said, “Whassup?!”, and kept going. I called to her, “Did you get your car? How’s it running?” She came back in the room, she looked so beautiful, her face was beaming, I remember she was wearing denim shorts and a pink spaghetti strap top. She said, “Great!!” She and her boyfriend, Matt’s 13 year old sister, Rachel had been driving around all afternoon, stopping here and there to see friends and show off her car. I asked if I could take it for a drive. She said, “Sure, but make it quick”, because she had just stopped back home to change into jeans. I reminded her that she needed to pack a bag to take to her dad’s, where she and her sister were going that night because my husband and I were leaving very early the next morning to go on a cruise. She said she could come over and get her stuff tomorrow. Joci gave me her keys and my husband and I got in her car and drove the distance of about 6 square blocks. My husband had been messing with her stereo controls and had the volume up, she had some sort of rap song in the cd player. By the time we got back, Joci and Rachel were sitting on the porch waiting for us, and as we pulled into the driveway, they were already walking up to the car. I remember, again how beautiful she looked. Her smile was so huge, her whole face was lit up, she was wearing a red baseball cap that belonged to her boyfriend, Matt Schiele. As I put the car in park, Joci was opening my door, she said, “Are you listenin’ to my tunes?!” and laughed. We got out and she and Rachel got in. I called out, “Drive safe!”

She called, “I will!”. She put it in reverse, I yelled, “you didn’t put your seatbelts on!” She stopped, stuck her head out the window, and said, “That’s the first time today that I forgot!” Then she backed out and drove away, the whole time smiling. It was about 5:30.

That was the last time I saw Joci alive. 

At 2:00 am, I awoke to the sound of the doorbell. I got up and went toward the front door and I could see a brown hat through the window in the door, that I  recognized as Sheriff’s hat. I immediately knew something bad had happened. I opened the door with a feeling of deep fear and anxiety building in my soul, to see a uniformed deputy and another man standing on my porch. I immediately said, “Did something happen to one of my kids?” The deputy said “we don’t know” and asked if there was someone else at home with me. I said my husband was home and repeated my question. The deputy asked that I wake up my husband. My mind was racing. I thought something had happened to my son, because the girls were at their dad’s, at it was too late for them to be out. I had talked to their dad earlier. Katie was with him and Joci had checked in with him and was out driving around in her car. 

I woke my husband, and he came out to the dining room. I don’t remember turning on lights, but now the room seemed so bright. I again said, “Did something happen to one of my kids?” The deputy said, “I don’t know. Do you know what your daughter was wearing?” My mind just started swimming…”daughter”, it must be Joci!! All I could see was her beautiful face and beaming smile and the red hat with her hair tucked behind her ears. I stuttered and tried think about what she was wearing…jeans, a red or blue top, I couldn’t remember, maybe her blue tennis shoes…and to make sense of what he was saying because she has a curfew and should have been at her Dad’s by now and no-one had called me to say she was missing. Then he said, “Does she have any identifying marks or piercings?”. I felt the blood drain from my face, I said, “yes, she has a belly ring …and I couldn’t think. He said, how about her ears…then I knew, it was her. I told him she had 5 or 6 piercings in each ear! He then asked me to sit down. He explained there had been a car accident and that someone had been killed, and it may have been my daughter. He reached for his shirt pocket and said he had some Polaroids, but did not want me to see them, but asked if my husband would look at them. He looked at the first picture and said “it might be her”, but wasn’t sure. They reluctantly showed him a 2nd Polaroid. Gordon looked at it for a moment and said, “it looks like her”. From there everything is a blur. I remember asking if anyone else was hurt. They said the driver was in the hospital, but thought he would be ok. I asked what happened. They said the driver was driving east on Shimmer Road and ran a stop sign at the South Locust intersection and had hit the gravel and lost control. I remember asking who the driver was and was told Justin Bute, but I had never heard of him. My mind raced…who was he, where was she at, why was she out so late, why was she with him?? The deputies asked if they could call anyone for us, we declined, then I remembered Joci’s dad needed to know…and Katie was with him. They offered to go over the deliver the news and make sure they were ok. .

After they left, I just sat there, not knowing what to do or feel. My husband just paced and wrung his hands. Then a sound escaped from me that I can’t describe…it was a wail, a scream, and the pain just came out of the depths of my soul. Just then, my son came in the back door with a look of fear I have never seen in another face, but I recognized as my own. He asked what was going on, he had seen the sheriff’s car pulling away just as he was coming home. I managed to tell him, “Oh God, Joci was killed in a car accident”…he practically collapsed…he said he had seen her a couple times that day. She had even stopped in and bought a new set of wiper blades from him. He kept saying, “no, no” and sat down at the dining room table and broke down and bawled. After a while, he left to go over and check on their dad and Katie, and bring them over to our house. 

Joci’s boyfriend called from the hospital, he had stopped at his friend’s house where Joci’s car was at and was told that a deputy had come by and said there had been an accident and wanted to know which car belonged to a girl named “Joci”. He had been to the hospital and the hospital wouldn’t give him any info. Gordon told him to come over to our house. He was dropped off and we had to break the news to him. We learned from him that the driver, Justin Bute, went by a nickname, “Duck” and Joci met him through Matt and had only met him once before (Duck was a childhood friend of Matt’s older brother). Joci was there because she was looking for Matt, and she was told he was planning to stop over there. Matt had actually got there right after they left, so he left to go looking for them, and when he came back later, the deputy had just left. 

Brian came back home with Katie, I was in the bedroom looking for my address book. She ran to me and was howling and crying. She fell into my lap and we cried until we couldn’t cry any more. Katie was so upset that she hadn’t spent any time with Joci at all that last day. Then it became really quiet…we all sat around shocked, numb, looking like a deer in the headlights…not knowing what to say or do. We eventually started calling family and friends, who within minutes started showing up at our house. We called Pastor Schmidt from our church and he came over and prayed with us. It gave us strength. 

I later called the hospital to check on Justin. They told me they couldn’t give me information about his condition, but they did eventually tell me that he had been released to the sheriff’s custody, but couldn’t give me any other information. I was confused, I didn’t know that there had been any wrongdoing, other than running a stop sign. I called Chief Deputy Chris Rea, who was the other officer who came to my home and had given me his card. Chief Deputy Rea then told me that there was alcohol involved and Justin was being held pending charges. I was dumbfounded. I didn’t expect it. No-one expects any of this. I had went from being concerned for his well-being to angry and shocked that he had caused my beautiful daughter’s death, and he had walked away. 

We got through the funeral arrangements, visitation, funeral and burial. I don’t know how, except that God was watching over us. We were all just going through the motions. 

In the days and weeks and months that followed, we met with the county attorney’s office, spoke to many of Joci’s friends, read through investigative reports, the autopsy, met with a sheriff’s investigator, and eventually an accident reconstructionist. We were very interested in justice for Joci. Justin was 20 years old at the time, underage. The autopsy report showed that Joci had .05 blood alcohol content. Justin’s was .098, just under the legal limit of .10, when it was tested at about 1:00 am, about an hour and a half after the accident. The state legislature was currently under debate to lower it to .08. Because Justin was under the legal limit, he could not be charged with DUI. They were going to try to charge him with motor vehicle homicide. 

From the start of our meetings with the county attorney we were very interested in finding out how Justin had came into possession of the alcohol. I have pieced together a scenario of what happed from my meeting with one of the investigators who spoke with the residents of the house where Joci and Justin ran into each other and from speaking to 3-4 friends who saw her that night. From what I understand, Joci was there first, she called her dad around 10:30 and talked him into letting her stay out past her 12:00 curfew. Supposedly it was not a “party”, but just a group of friends hanging out. Justin arrived, bringing with him a bottle of vodka and Sunny Delite. He mixed himself a drink, and was talking with Joci. Justin had also just bought a new car, a black 95 Mitsubishi Eclipse. In fact, my son, Brian, who did know Justin, but as “Duck”, had also sold Justin wiper blades that day. As they were talking, he mixed a drink for, Joci, and supposedly she is the only person he offered a drink to. They talked about their cars. Others who saw her there said she was happy and laughing and having a great time. Justin mixed a second drink for Joci and she was sipping at it as they talked. Then they were going to go for a ride and Joci still had quite a bit of her drink, so he helped her drink the rest of it. She and Justin then left and got in his car. Some of her friends were walking up just as they were getting ready to leave, and her friends asked where they were going and Joci said they we’re “going for a ride”. They both got out of the car and talked to them for a couple minutes. Then Joci gave her friend, Adam, a hug, and they got back in the car and took off. They left the house right around 11:30, probably went straight south on Blaine, turned east on Shimmer Road, and sped down Shimmer road at anywhere from 65-85 miles per hour, ran the stop sign at South Locust and immediately lost control when the car hit the gravel on the other side of the intersection. The car skidded sideways into the north ditch, hit a telephone pole and started rolling and flipping. Justin was probably ejected right away, because he found himself directly west of the car, which then caught fire. 

After the fire was put out, they flipped the car and found she was not in it. They started searching the cornfield and she was found about 100 ft west of the car. Joci was thought to have been inside the car, but she did not have her seatbelt on and was ejected and thrown approximately 60-70 yards. There is no way to know if she was conscious for any of that time, but I pray that due to the massive head and chest injuries she sustained she felt no pain. They pronounced her deceased at 12:15 am Oct 21, but they didn’t know who “she” was. Justin only knew her first name, and really nothing else about her. From Justin they found out where he had met up with her and that she had left her car there, which is ultimately how they traced her to me and why it took until 2:00 am to notify us.

Allegedly, the residents of the house were the only others that were drinking, and I found that it is not illegal to drink in your own home even if you are underage. I also found that it is not illegal to allow a minor to drink in your home. And, since Justin brought his own alcohol, the householders were not legally responsible for allowing other minors to drink in their home. This apparently is to protect the rights of parents who want to allow their minor children to drink in their own home for whatever reason. The example I was given was a family allowing their children to toast the New Year with a glass of wine on New Years Eve. I was totally floored by this. I had always assumed that if minors drank in your home and you were aware of it, that you would be guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, but not so. 

We then hoped that we could try to get Justin to give up the name of the person who bought the vodka as part of a plea bargain. We definitely wanted Justin to pay for his crime, but we were also very interested in punishing the person who provided the alcohol. The reality is that, yes, Justin brought the alcohol, he gave it to Joci (which I also couldn’t understand why Justin wasn’t being charged with anything for giving her alcohol), he was driving the car under the influence, he was speeding, and he ran the stop sign, BUT, had they not been drinking and had gone for a ride, it is highly probable that she would have been “right back”. And, if Justin had not given Joci alcohol, she would have been in a better position to think about getting in a car with someone who was drinking. Justin, himself, only admitted to drinking 1 mixed drink at 10:30 pm, but we all know it takes more than 1 drink to get to a blood alcohol limit of .098, and especially when the test was done 2 ½ hours after he said he had his last drink. I was told that the investigative report of what Joci drank was in line with her blood alcohol content because of her weight of about 100 lbs. 

Joci had had a great day that day. She was so high on life, she didn’t need anything else. She was so excited and psyched up about her car and new found freedom, she didn’t need anything else. I know Joci wasn’t perfect. I know she also chose to drink that night. But if the alcohol wasn’t there, there wouldn’t have been a temptation. I truly believe the addition of alcohol to the equation was the defining factor and there needs to be some way to make adults who think there is nothing wrong with buying alcohol for minors understand that they are putting innocent lives at risk. 

As hard as I have campaigned against underage drinking and especially drinking and driving with the teens I come in to contact with, I still hear that it’s going on. I even occasionally hear about someone’s parent who is not only aware of their teen’s drinking, but also buys the alcohol and provides a place to drink it. It is especially hurtful, when I know that both the teen and the parent knew Joci personally. The parents and other adults need to understand that they are role models and they are influencing these kids to think that they can’t have fun unless there is alcohol involved. Being a teenager is hard enough and the stress they deal with can be overwhelming, adding alcohol does not help them get through these trials, in the long run, it only adds to it. Justin’s family also suffered for his actions. You love your children and you want to protect them, but at the 
same time you try to find some common ground where you can relate, but alcohol is not that common ground. Save it for their 21st birthday, when they have matured enough to know the responsibilities that come with drinking. Think about how you would feel if you provided the weapon that was used to kill or destroy a life. That is what alcohol is, a weapon. It can destroy a young life by killing and/or permanently physically injuring a life, and it can lead to a life long battle with alcoholism. Think about whether you want to carry that responsibility before you turn your head or “wink” at underage drinking. 

Justin did eventually pled no contest to motor vehicle homicide, reduced from a felony, and procuring alcoholic liquor for a minor and was sentenced to 3 years probation, 3 hrs per week community service, 90 days in jail, restitution for funeral expenses, drug and alcohol evaluation and any recommended treatment, 3 years no driving, (which, I was shocked to find is not normally even part of the sentencing for motor vehicle homicide, but we specifically asked for it and Justin agreed to it) and for the 3 years of his probation he has to turn himself into the Hall County Jail on the anniversary of her death to be placed in solitary confinement from 12:00 noon-6:00 pm. Part of the reason he got the sentence he did, was because he made a statement during his pre-sentence investigation that “They are doing this to me over an accident”. Which showed the court that he was not taking responsibility for his actions. True, he did not set out to kill or cause harm, but he put her life at risk by getting behind the wheel of a car when he was under the influence, he should have been in control of his speed and he should have stopped at the stop sign. And if you buy alcohol and give it to a minor, you do not intend to harm or kill, but you must realize that that is exactly what can happen. 

Know that you never get over losing a child. It’s been nearly 3 years since we lost Joci, and not a day goes by that we don’t think of her. Sometimes I go a month or two and don’t cry, at other times I cry every day. Her brother, sister, father, step-father, grand parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and hundreds of others still mourn her death. Katie seems to have struggled the most. She lost her best friend, some-time roommate, mentor, role model and big sister all at once…which is pretty hard for a 14 year old. If you’re someone who has bought alcohol for a minor in the past or have thought about it, think about my story the next time you’re asked to buy. I just want you all to remember the images I shared and think of how you would feel if an officer came to your door in the middle of the night and had Polaroids to show of your dead child, and “Think Before You Wink”.

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