Joyce Gassaway is still trying to process her 38-year-old daughter’s death in a Clayton County collision last month.
“Sort of hard to know that I'm never going to see her again,” Gassaway told Channel 2 Action News.
She said she didn’t know the driver of the car that hit and killed Dusty Renee Walraven appeared in court this week. But she was certain that he shouldn’t have been driving because of his age, Channel 2 reported.
Winford Williams appeared in court in a wheelchair and wore a medical boot on his foot, possibly the result of the crash that sent Walraven’s car down an embankment Sept. 20.
The 69-year-old pulled into Walraven’s path of travel on Ga. 42 about 7:40 p.m. that night, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
“I wouldn't get out that late at night and drive if I was 69,” Gassaway told the news station.
Williams tried to turn left onto Oak Circle, colliding with Walraven’s Honda Accord, flipping it and sending it down an embankment, Clayton police Sgt. Ashanti Marbury previously said.
Hours after rescue workers freed Walraven, the married mother of two had no signs of life. She was pronounced dead on the scene, Marbury said.
Gassaway told Channel 2 her daughter would still be alive if Williams had given up his license.
“I don’t think he should have been driving,” she said. “I really don’t.”
Williams faces charges of second-degree vehicular homicide and failure to yield when turning left. The judge set bond at $6,500.
Gassaway isn’t the only one working through her grief.
“It’s real hard to know that I'm never gonna see her again,” Walraven’s cousin, Wendy Carter, told Channel 2.
But despite the fatal crash, Gassaway doesn’t want to see Williams jailed because she doesn’t think he meant to kill her daughter. He just shouldn’t have been driving, she said.
“The nights are the worst,” she said.
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