ANDERSON — Despite glowing recommendations from family and friends, a repeated drunk driver who killed two people 20 years ago in a car crash was sentenced Monday to nine years in prison, six months after a jury conviction.
“We don’t send people home on electric monitoring whose friends are here, and throw people in jail and impose the maximum when no one shows up,” said Madison County Superior Court 1 Judge Dennis Carroll, after listening to about 45 minutes of testimony. “That’s not how it works.”
Carroll gave 53-year-old Greg Barkdull the maximum nine-year sentence, three years for Class D felony operating while intoxicated and six years for being classified an habitual substance offender.
Barkdull has been convicted of drunk driving three times since a 1989 accident that killed 22-year-old Barbara Stoner and 36-year-old Doris Smith. He served two years in prison for that case. The latest arrest was in 2008.
“He got away with an easy sentence and here we are again,” said Stoner’s father, George Stoner. “This time, I would have to say it’s the defendant’s fault. He should have gotten help.”
Defense witnesses did not dispute that Barkdull has been irresponsible and selfish over the past few decades, including Barkdull himself. However, they testified, he has cleaned up his life in the past year — six months of which the case was shuffled through seven judges for sentencing.
“What that’s allowed Greg to do is continue to prove himself,” said defense attorney Bryan Williams. “It did allow him an extra six months in the community to prove himself to his family, to Skip Ockomon, to his co-workers and most importantly to himself.”
Anderson firefighter Skip Ockomon, who has openly discussed his alcoholic past, said he has sponsored Barkdull through Alcoholics Anonymous for about eight months.
“I told him when he first called, ‘I won’t waste time with anybody. Either you’re in or you’re not,’” Ockomon said. “And he was in.”
During an emotional statement to the court and apology to the family, Barkdull said his decisions before the 1989 fatal crash were because he was “a very selfish person, self-centered.”
“You don’t know how much I want to go back and change my past,” he said over sobs. “I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed to be sitting here right now.”
He said he knows the impact he has made on the Stoners; he has two daughters and two grandchildren, he said.
“I’ve taken this opportunity away from these people, to enjoy birthdays and Thanksgiving and Christmas and family reunions and grandchildren and a wedding,” he said.
His younger brother Christopher Barkdull also testified that their relationship has done a complete turnaround in the past year. Once at odds, the brothers work together at Christopher Barkdull’s metal-sheet manufacturing business.
“We wouldn’t have some of the customers we have if it wasn’t for Greg,” he said.
While delivering the sentence, Carroll said Greg Barkdull’s new path is a good one and wished him well on it.
But he admonished him for a fact that neither attorney mentioned during testimony: He was speeding during the latest offense.
“That you’re driving drunk and speeding is somehow an illustration of the callousness with which you appreciate a vehicle weighing thousands of pounds that could do so much damage,” Carroll said.
Barkdull was ordered to pay a $200 fine for the speeding infraction.
Contact Christina M. Wright, 640-4883, christina.wright@heraldbulletin.com.
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Repeated drunk driver given nine years
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