Trauma of a crash and fugitive haunt family four years later
Trauma of a crash and fugitive haunt family four years later
By Russ Lay on April 2, 2015
https://outerbanksvoice.com/wp-conte...5/04/Chris.jpgChris Storie is still trying to recover after her brother’s death.
Christina Storie was seriously injured in the collision that claimed her brother’s life.
She has remained relentlessly focused on law enforcement finding Luis Rodriguez, who disappeared in 2012, and bringing him back to Dare County to stand trial.
Since the 2011 crash at the intersection of U.S. 158 and Colington Road, she has stayed in touch with police and the Voice. She has made many visits to Dare County and Elizabeth City, often with one or two of Joe Storie’s sisters, trying to get updates.
But she seldom talked about herself as a victim of the accident.
In addition to the emotional trauma of that night, she suffered serious injuries that have required surgeries and caused physical pain.
Second of three parts
Police charged Rodriguez with two felonies; one of homicide by vehicle and the other, felonious injury by vehicle. Those latter charges applied to the injuries received by Chris Storie and Joe Storie’s wife, Alicia.
Alicia has stayed out of the media limelight and we have respected her wishes to not be contacted about the collision or the ongoing case.
Chris Storie, and to a large extent her sisters, have been more persistent in demanding answers and trying to figure out how it came to be that Luis Rodriguez is still a free man.
However, in 2014, her contacts with the Voice decreased significantly.
After some phone conversations, it became apparent that the horrors of Oct. 5, 2011 had come directly home to roost with Chris Storie and her status as a victim had become elevated.
Chris Storie relates trials she’s been through.
Survivor’s guilt has been the one issue that has affected Chris Storie most profoundly — why she lived and her brother, Joe, died.
Part of what has kept her focused has been her efforts to bring Luis Rodriguez back into custody. She also wants to raise awareness of how the “system,” in her opinion, has failed her, her family and Joe Storie.
Insurance companies have been slow to deal with her, noting that Luis Rodriguez was charged with the accident and therefore is responsible for paying the medical bills.
Dare County has sent dunning letters to her for ambulance services on that night, adding more financial burdens to her already fragile emotional state.
The district attorney’s office, at that time under the supervision of the late Frank Parrish, failed to return phone calls and it took several attempts over many months for Chris Storie and her sisters to get a meeting.
And while Storie had praise for the detectives she spoke to at the Kill Devil Hills Police Department, and while she was appreciative those officers took the initial efforts to seek cell-phone warrants when Rodriguez absconded from Sentara Norfolk General, her dealings with KDH’s police chief, she said, have brought her and her sisters more frustration.
https://outerbanksvoice.com/wp-conte...Pic-Injury.jpgChris Storie after the crash.
Under the North Carolina Crime Victims Bill of Rights, police and the D.A.s office are required to keep victims of crimes — which not only include a direct victim such as Chris Storie, but surviving immediate family members — informed about the status of a case as it moves from arrest to investigation, trial, incarceration and even parole hearings.
According to the Storie family, Frank Parrish never reached out to the family or offered the services under the Crime Victims Bill of Rights, nor did Kill Devil Hills Police Chief Gary Britt.
When the Voice and family members looking through court documents discovered Parrish’s office had dismissed the obligations of the bail bondsman who represented Rodriguez to repay the bond when his client failed to appear in court, he did not respond to the Voice or the family.
At that time the Voice and the family raised concerns about the documentation provided by the bondsman in asking his bond obligation be dismissed since his client was incarcerated in another jail on the scheduled court date.
It took until 2015, and a new D.A., Andy Womble, to re-open that aspect of the case and re-instate the bond, which now forces the bondsman to try to locate Rodriguez or risk paying back over $50,000.
There have been some bright spots. For example, the Dare County Crime Line raised the reward for information leading to the capture of Rodriguez from $1,000 to $2,000 in 2013, and in late 2014, at the request of a Greenville television station for each coastal county to provide a “most wanted” suspect, the Dare County Sheriff’s Office listed Rodriguez as one of two.
That story was not only carried on the Greenville television station and its website but was picked up by other television and news outlets as far south as Savannah, Ga.
And yet, as you listen to the words of Chris and Denise Storie, there is no doubt that the actions of the former D.A. and some members of local law enforcement have added to the victim’s emotional toll, rather then helping to relieve some of that burden as the Crime Victims Bill of Rights was designed to do.
In our final installment, we look at the actions of the judge who presided over the bond hearing.
https://outerbanksvoice.com/2015/04/...r-years-later/