Judge: Losing wife is man's worst sentence

Until his dying day, Walter McNally Jr. must live with the knowledge his recklessness led to his wife's violent death.

He must look at their four children's faces, knowing it is because he chose to drink and drive that they are growing up without their mother.

DuPage Associate Judge Mark Dwyer ruled Friday that kind of misery is punishment enough. The typically strict judge tempered justice with mercy in declining to send McNally to prison for three to 14 years.

Instead, the 33-year-old Addison man must serve 120 days in the county jail, three years' probation and 120 hours of public service, and pay a $5,000 fine and continue with treatment.

"We can talk about rehabilitation, retribution, punishment, or the need to send a message to the public," Dwyer said. "But nothing this court can do will bring back his wife and mother of his children. He has to live with that, every day."

McNally pleaded guilty Nov. 28 to aggravated drunken driving in a high-speed crash that killed his wife, Angie, 28, his high school sweetheart whom he married in 1997.

He lost control of his Chevy Trailblazer at 3:50 a.m. March 27, 2004, while traveling east on the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway just west of Route 53 near Itasca.

Prosecutors Mike Pawl and Tim Diamond urged a tough sentence. They said McNally was behind the wheel of a speeding car with more than three times the legal limit of alcohol in his system. He also tested positive for cocaine and marijuana.

After hitting a guard rail, the Chevy Trailblazer became airborne before rolling several times in a ditch. McNally and his two passengers were ejected. A childhood friend, Jennifer Wruck, 27, of Roselle, and Walter McNally survived despite traumatic injuries.

But Angie, who was celebrating her recent birthday, died from the injuries she sustained after being thrown from the front seat.

More than three years later, the defendant still walks with a cane while trying to recover from a broken back as well as other debilitating injuries that have kept him from returning to work.

His attorney, Robert Fischer, said McNally completed 75 hours of voluntary alcohol and substance abuse treatment in 2005. He argued McNally suffered enough, emotionally, physically and financially. A tearful McNally also apologized.

It wasn't his first DUI. He pleaded guilty earlier to a 1997 drunken-driving arrest in Itasca, for which a judge sentenced him to court supervision and counseling. McNally had two marijuana arrests and admitted abusing alcohol and drugs for years.

He is the second DuPage County man in recent years whose wife died in a drunken crash in which her husband was behind the wheel.

An Oak Brook CEO, Kevin P. Murphy, received probation for a Dec. 26, 1998, crash that killed his wife, Stacey.

In that case, the wife's parents asked the judge to show mercy to their son-in-law, who had never received a traffic ticket before the crash.

Fischer said Angie McNally's family also supports the husband, who with their help and that of his family is raising the couple's four children. In fact, her parents even wrote a letter to the judge on his behalf.

As part of the sentence, Judge Dwyer urged McNally to continue in his efforts to speak to others at the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists' victim-impact panels.

"You would have an awful lot to offer other people," Dwyer said. "You're living proof of what can happen."