Family of teen killed in Halloween DUI crash want her to be more than a statistic

It has been a year since 17-year-old Savannah McInnis was hit and killed by a drunken driver on Halloween, so her family doesn’t plan on celebrating the holiday this year.

McInnis died on her way home from trick-or-treating with her 2-year-old son when Leonard Novell Walker II slammed into her sedan with his pickup. He was driving nearly 80 mph near the intersection of Anne Road and Coleman Street in North Las Vegas, police said, and his blood-alcohol level was 0.103 percent. The legal limit is 0.08.

She died at the scene. Her son and other occupants of the vehicle were hospitalized. Her mother, Julie, is now raising her son, and her sister, Brianna Serratos, still replays their last conversation in her mind.

“I’ve been in California for a while, so I guess you could say in my own bubble, it’s not real,” Serratos said. “But I go back to Vegas, and it’s a snap to reality. There’s no way to get over it.”

Drunken driving is a nationwide curse on Halloween. Statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show that 48 percent of traffic fatalities on highways nationwide around Oct. 31 involve an intoxicated driver.

Law enforcement agencies across Nevada participate in a nationwide Joining Forces campaign each year, using federal grant money to focus efforts on traffic laws such as DUI, pedestrian safety, distracted driving and speeding. Police in the Las Vegas Valley will use the grant for enforcement this weekend.

This year, Las Vegas police have made about 3,700 DUI arrests. Metro made 4,800 total in 2013 and more than 6,000 in 2012.

Savannah McInnis was one of 10 in North Las Vegas who died in an alcohol-related crash last year. Also in 2013, Metro recorded 26, and Henderson had three. The Nevada Highway Patrol reported 33 in Southern Nevada.

On Halloween night last year, at least 25 drivers were arrested on DUI charges valleywide.

Walker was sentenced to eight to 20 years in prison this month, a week after what would have been McInnis’ 18th birthday.

“He drank, he drove. He admitted it, and my sister is dead in the street,” Serratos said. “You took a life. It doesn’t matter if you’re sorry afterward.”

McInnis’ family thinks DUI convictions should yield more severe consequences. Julie McInnis said the family will always be fractured because of her daughter’s death.

“You lose a child, you don’t get over the pain,” McInnis said. “She didn’t die alone that night. I died, too.”

McInnis and Serratos agreed that jail time on a first offense might deter people from drinking and driving. Putting breathalyzers in new vehicles as a common practice would help too, they said.

This year, the family will come together Halloween night just to be together on the one-year anniversary. They plan to stay home and keep off the roads.

“It’s statistics on paper until it happened to my sister,” Serratos said. “I just want people to start learning. … I don’t want her to be another number.”