"I thought about my parents and to be honest with you, that's probably the only reason I didn't get hurt," Leon Roberson, Jr. said.
Roberson admits the similarities between his accident and the one that killed his parents almost three years ago are bizarre. "I remember my parents' car. It was similar to that," he said. "They didn't make it. I came out with bumps and bruises." Around 1:45am Wednesday, Roberson was on his way to work. He was waiting at a red light on 610 at Wallisville Road. Police say a suspected drunken driver in a burgundy Impala was traveling about 50 miles per hour and never touched his brakes before slamming into Roberson's silver Cadillac. Wallisville is a road engrained in Roberson's mind because just two miles from where his crash occurred, is where his parents were killed. "The tape is gone. The markers are gone. The recreation is gone, but it survived," he said. In 2006, Leon Roberson, 78, and Marie Roberson, 67, were driving home from Bible class when they turned on Wallisville and Sergio Gonzalez, a tow truck driver, plowed into them and killed them both. Though the family suspected he was driving drunk, Gonzalez was never charged.But when a family member on Thursday connected the dots, it left Roberson, Jr. breathless.
"He said, 'Hey man, your mother and father got killed on Wallisville on a Wednesday by a suspected drunk driver,'" Roberson Jr. said. "And I got hit two miles from them on Wallisville by a suspected drunk driver. I almost started crying." Roberson says he can't understand why this has happened twice to his family. He says one thing is clear."You cannot operate a vehicle drunk," he said. "You can't do it."
The tow truck driver who killed the Robersons had his case dismissed even though he pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide. Prosecutors said Gonzalez was speeding but Leon Roberson failed to yield right of way at a stop sign. The DA's office concluded they that Gonzalez's actions did not rise to the level of criminally negligent homicide. However, Roberson Jr. is hoping the driver from Wednesday night's accident will be charged.