DEALING WITH LOSS

"You're my future and my present

My pride and joy

You're my one and only

My son

Momma's little boy."

Jenifer Edmundson wrote those words to her only son, Dennis Tucker, shortly after his first birthday in 1983. She described him as a beautiful son she would have done anything for, the two of them halves of one complete whole.

Four years later Dennis' life would be snuffed out -- stolen -- by a drunk driver on a Southeast Missouri road.

While the words of the poem belong to Edmundson, they also could be applied to Lucille Sams of Cape Girardeau.

Clyde and Lucille Sams' 38-year-old son Gary Sams was described by his parents as a happy, dutiful son who was a hard worker and a good person.

Last August, they learned that Gary had been stabbed to death in his Cape Girardeau home.

Dennis Tucker and Gary Sams both were the victims of criminal acts. In 1993, U.S. residents experienced nearly 11 million violent victimizations, according to Bureau of Justice statistics.

While the victims in these situations are killed, they leave behind victims of another sort, loved ones who are forced to deal with the loss.

"I tell everyone that he didn't kill one person, he killed two," Edmundson said of the man who killed her son by driving drunk. "It seemed impossible for me to face it. I was a total wreck."

Sitting in her home in Jackson, Edmundson flipped through a scrapbook full of pictures of her handsome child. While recounting the events of the day her son died, Edmundson choked back tears.

The memories will be 10 years old in June, but she remembers -- and feels -- them as if they were yesterday.

On June 13, 1987, Edmundson and Dennis buckled up in their 1984 Chevrolet Silverado, left their Oran residence and headed for Edmundson's sister's house at about 5 p.m. Her sister lived just a few miles down Highway 77 and she only planned the trip to take a few minutes.

At about the same time she left, a man named Jesse Teague left his brother's residence in Oran. Witnesses told police that Teague left his brother's residence highly intoxicated.

It wasn't the first time Teague was behind the wheel of an automobile while drunk.

In 1981, he pleaded guilty in Cape Girardeau to driving while intoxicated on two separate occasions. In 1984, he pleaded guilty to having an excessive blood alcohol content while operating a motor vehicle.

This time, Teague was traveling north on Highway 77 and Edmundson was traveling south when his vehicle crossed over into the southbound lane.

Seeing that Teague was coming right at them in her lane, Edmundson cut the wheels of her vehicle to the left, right into the path of an oncoming vehicle. The vehicle hit them head-on. Edmundson was injured in the accident, suffering lacerations to the head.

Dennis was rushed to a local hospital, where he died of severe head injuries.

Teague was charged with involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to seven years in the Missouri Department of Corrections, the maximum allowable.

In his decision, Circuit Judge Anthony Heckemeyer told Teague, "I can find no place in my heart or soul to have any feelings for you except I want you gone as long as I can keep you gone. If it was three times as long, I would sentence you. If the range had been 40 years, I would have sentenced you to 40 years.

"You are of no use to society in your condition. You are a threat to children and innocent people."

Teague served a little over two years of his sentence and was paroled.

Last week, Dennis Tucker's family picked up a copy of the newspaper and found a story that said Teague had gotten a fifth DWI and would serve only four months in the county jail.

Missouri law stipulates that Teague could only be charged with a Class B misdemeanor for the most recent offense because of the time that has elapsed between the three convictions. The law states that a person can only be charged with a felony if he has more than two DWIs within 10 years.

He could not be charged with a felony because the oldest prior conviction was slightly more than 10 years ago. He could not be charged with a second offense because he has no DWIs within the past five years immediately preceding the current charge.

"It's like he's continually raping us," said Edmundson's sister, Valerie Durnburg. "He killed a little boy but he didn't learn anything from it."

Edmundson said she can never fully finish grieving for her son as long as the man responsible is out of jail.

"I think Jesse Teague should spend the rest of his life in jail," she said. "The judge told him he gave my son a death sentence. Now I think he should get a life sentence. In a way, that's what I'm serving without my son."

The Sams' say the rights enjoyed by criminals or alleged criminals also have made grieving difficult for them.

"We just get by day to day," Lucille Sams said. "But there's not a day that goes by that I don't think of my son and what happened to him. I'm not sure if I ever will."

Robert K. Lizenbee, who has been charged with the first-degree murder of their son, will have his day in court later this year. Until then, he's free on bail.

"He got out to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with his family," Lucille Sams said. "Meanwhile Gary's still dead."

"Where is Gary's bail?" asks Gary Sams' aunt, Barbara Thomason of St. James. "He lays up there in that cold dark mausoleum and will never see another Christmas."

The family feels there should be no bail in a capital murder case.

"Isn't there any justice?" Thomason asked. "I have seen the pain and sadness this person (Lizenbee) has caused and I want to see some justice for Gary."

Edmundson said she will never get over her son's death.

"Not something that horrific," she said. "That took a piece of me that I can never get back."