Intern's death: DUI suspect sobs during news conference

The inscription in the high school yearbook could have been written for Jordan Griner:

“Those who dream make wonderful things happen. So dream, dear, dream‚ ... the world is waiting!”

But Jordan Griner is dead, and that note was written to the young woman accused of killing him.

Charged with DUI and the vehicular homicide death of a young intern who worked for the governor’s office, Christa Scott stepped before TV crews and reporters with her parents Thursday afternoon and spoke for the first time since the wreck nearly a week ago.

What she and her mother said — they were sorry — could have been conveyed without words.

Christa Scott, who is charged in the accident, and her mother, Jaeralynn, could barely be heard through sobs and crying that, at times, so overcame Christa, she seemed about to collapse in the office of lawyer David Wolfe.

Jaeralynn Scott told reporters the family has been overcome by grief since the accident, Jordan Griner’s death, her daughter’s arrest, and the two days her daughter spent in Fulton County Jail before she was released Monday night on $100,000 bond.

Christa’s father, Steve Scott, an Air Force veteran, declined to offer an apology and condolences in a written statement as his wife and daughter did. But when he entered Wolfe’s office, his eyes were as red and welled with tears as theirs were, and he left looking every bit as distraught.

Their grief was made public the day after Griner’s family buried their son in Augusta.

Investigators are still trying to figure out how the lives of two 20-somethings, both driving green Mustangs, collided so tragically Saturday morning.

Griner, 24, dreamed of becoming a U.S. Senator. He had been out at a party that night with friends, but as the designated driver, Griner didn’t drink. He dropped them off and was headed home, driving down 17th Street. When he came to the intersection at West Peachtree Street, the light was green, and he pulled out.

It was about 4 a.m.

Scott — a 26-year-old with a degree in business who worked as a waitress at the Midtown bar, Door 44 — had worked at the club that night. They were doing a special promotion for Sailor Jerry spiced rum, according to the owner. The bar closed as usual, according to the bar’s attorney, Alan Begner, at 2:30 a.m.

Scott, driving a 2002 Mustang heading up West Peachtree, ran the light, a witness told police, and slammed into the driver’s side of Griner’s 2000 Mustang, killing him.

The officer described the scene: Griner was pinned in his car. It would take crews about 30 minutes to remove him and get him to Grady Memorial Hospital where he was declared dead. Christa Scott was unharmed and apparently frightened by what had happened.

“The second vehicle was occupied by a white female,” Atlanta police officer A.J. Moline wrote in his incident report.

“I approached the driver and she was sitting in the passenger seat. She stood up and asked me if the other driver was OK? At that time I did smell the faint odor of alcoholic beverage coming from her person. I instructed the female to sit back down in the car and if she was OK. She said that she was fine and again asked if the other driver was OK.”

Later, police said her blood alcohol level was .229, almost three times the legal limit. Her attorney said Scott has never been arrested for DUI before.

Wolfe said it wasn’t until Scott was taken into custody that she was told Griner had died.

Griner was buried Wednesday and Thursday morning his family released a statement thanking those who attended the funeral.

On Thursday afternoon, after the Scotts faced the TV cameras, the Griners’ spokesman, Matt Fogt, said they had no comment on the press conference.

Christa Scott and her family and friends are not talking to reporters, who have been left to piece together what they can of her life.

A Facebook page that appears to be hers carries this posting: “Your (sic) only as strong as your weakest thought. Oh yeah, and my dog is SOOO DEADLY SEXY.” She has a posting on the Web site Modelingmayhem.com, which features photos of her ranging from randy to elegant.

In a sales pitch she appears to have posted on that site:

“I hope to network and meet experienced photographers. I’m available for print, runway, spokesmodel, and TV work. I am reliable, dependable, motivated, very outgoing, and intelligent. I have great communication skills and love working with new people. I’m excited so to be a part of this site! The best way to contact me is via email. I look forward into working with you! “

While apparently looking for other jobs, Scott worked at Door 44, a club on 12th Street that appeals to a mid-20s local crowd. Club owner Pablo Henderson, who met Scott shortly after he became a partner and consultant to the club last April, said he isn’t sure how long she has worked there.

“I don’t know much about her, just met her a couple of times, but I know she worked at a couple of clubs before, and she played golf in college,” Henderson said.

He said he believes Scott worked at the club twice a week.

Henderson described Scott as a nice girl struggling to make ends meet. “I’m assuming she must have had another job,” he said. “How does one survive in working a couple of days a week? You do the math.”

But it’s her connection to the club — how she may have become intoxicated that night — that is the fixation of both police and an internal investigation launched by the club itself, according to attorney Alan Begner.

Henderson said he’s heard the speculation that the club might have stayed open after hours that night — it quits serving at 2 a.m. and closes at 2:30 a.m. — and Scott may have been drinking at the club before she left work in her car, which could make the club liable in the accident, according to Georgia laws.

“If it was some sort of after-hours place, [but] the club being responsible, I just don’t see that happening,” Henderson said. “There seems to be some kind of mystique behind my club. It’s just a small business having to conform to laws, and we do. I don’t see what else we could have done.”

Matt Cook, an Atlanta attorney who specializes in liability cases involving bars and the Georgia Dram Act won a judgment two years ago against a bar for over-serving a drunk driver who badly injured his client when he slammed into in his car in a head-on collision. When asked about such liability cases on Thursday, Cook said the law has been so weakened by courts since its passage, it’s tough to win a case.

“You have to prove three things,” he said. “That in fact the person was served. That the person was noticeably intoxicated. And when the person was served the bar knew, or should have known, the customer was soon to be driving. It’s the last part that makes it almost impossible.”

In the case of Scott, Cook said, if an investigation finds she was served alcohol at the club that night, it will be easier to prove that case because she is an employee and the bar “probably knows whether or not she drives” to and from work.

On the police incident report, Scott lists her address on Lenox Road in Atlanta. Since she bonded out of jail Monday, she’s been staying with her parents in Newnan in their two-story home with a pool in the back in a quiet neighborhood of trimmed lawns and homes in the $270,000 range.

Wednesday afternoon a note was taped to the front door: “Please respect our privacy as we pray for the Griner family and begin to process this tragedy.”

On Thursday, Bill Dubis, a neighbor down the street, said he knew Scott slightly and often saw her drive up and down the street in her Mustang. He was surprised to hear she worked in a bar.

Scott was born in the Panama Canal zone when her father was serving in the military. The family moved to Fayetteville in 1995 and Newnan in 1997. She attended East Coweta High School where she was a cheerleader, was on the yearbook staff and was one of only two girls on the golf team.

When she graduated from high school, her mother and father bought a full-page ad in the 2002 yearbook with pictures of her as a toddler, as a child, and with a more glamorous pose as a high school senior at the top of the page.

“Dream High. Dream Big!” her parents wrote. “We did, and look how our dreams turned out. You. We have asked ourselves time and again how we were so blessed to have such a wonderful daughter‚...those who dream make wonderful things happen. So dream, dear, dream...the world is waiting!”

Wolfe, her attorney, said he intends to enter a not-guilty plea at the scheduled July 6 preliminary hearing, but he is still investigating the charges.