Ex-Georgia Tech athlete tells of ‘horrible decision'

Released from prison in August, and only a few weeks removed from wearing an ankle monitor, McJunkin has been speaking about the consequence of poor decisions. This week she addressed her largest group yet -- 50 or more Tech athletes.

“Every day you make different decisions ... you’ve probably made good choices to get here,” she said to an auditorium of athletes from all sports. “I was sitting where you are 15 years ago. I made the right decisions just as you have. When I was 28 ... I made a really horrible decision. That decision eventually led to the death of two young adults.”

After McJunkin’s SUV hit a smaller car, Dawsonville’s Jeff Coursey, 20, and Corey Blackstone, 24, died.

At Tech on Monday, she explained that she had spent that evening celebrating a friend’s home purchase, and that she had four drinks. After declining a friend’s offer to sleep on the couch, she tried to drive home and got lost before entering 400 at McFarland Road. Most of her knowledge of what happened next is based on what she was told by others. The accident occurred just north of Windward Parkway.

In a subsequent interview, McJunkin, 34, was uncomfortable speaking with a reporter about that evening, the accident, or her relationship with families of the deceased.

She and her father, Andy Lisska, said they understand there can be no atonement for what McJunkin did. Yet she began trying while in Metro and Arrendale State prisons to do right, to be better, to -- in her words Monday -- “share.”

“The bottom line is, inarguably, that I should not have survived that fatal collision,” she said. “You think that there is no way you can be happy in prison ... but I was very grateful every day that I woke up.”

In a phone interview Thursday, McJunkin said, “There hasn’t been a time since the accident that I haven’t been thinking about this. Things like this can happen, and they should not happen. I hope people learn from my example.”

Tech linebacker Steven Sylvester said McJunkin’s message resonated “for the simple reason that a lot of times when you get a story like that it’s not someone you can relate to, but this was someone who has been in your shoes, who’s walked the halls at Georgia Tech.”

McJunkin and her husband, Jeff, have a daughter who turned 4 in October. They live in metro Atlanta, and the child was 9 months old when her mother was incarcerated.

After sentencing in March 2007, news accounts said the Coursey and Blackstone families sought mercy from Fulton County Superior Court judge Constance Russell after McJunkin pleaded guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide.

Jeff’s father, Richard, urged the judge to, "Let something come out of this whole thing, something good."

Scott Blackstone, Corey’s brother, said, "In the beginning, I was very angry, very upset. Since then, I have looked back and realize this is a mistake. ... She took our brother from us, and in some ways she should have to become a sister to us.”

The judge said, “People have a capacity to forgive, but the state has a responsibility to see that people are punished over their actions.”

McJunkin received a sentence of 15 years to serve 10.

She told students that in prison there was “zero privacy. There was very little quiet time. There was always somebody yelling.”

The final 6 1/2 years of her 10-year term will be served on parole, and then she will be on probation for five years. Her prison time was shortened for meritorious behavior.

She helped start a “Locks of Love” program in prison to donate hair for hair pieces to given to children suffering long-term hair loss for medical reasons. In Arrendale, McJunkin was a teacher’s aide and then was nominated to serve in the prison-based fire department that responds to calls northwest of Gainesville.

Working in retail for an hourly wage leaves her well below where she was when she parlayed Tech undergraduate and master’s degrees into a job at the former Scientific Atlanta before moving into real estate. Her license was revoked in 2007. She said getting jobs will always be difficult, “because I’m a felon.”

Judge Russell also ruled that McJunkin must for 10 years make monthly payments into a trust fund for one victim’s family (she reached a settlement with the other family before sentencing), do 500 hours of community service and speak to youth about drunken driving.

Serious injuries to her right ankle (she also broke her left leg and right arm) make running only a memory, permanently. She is likely to limp forever. “I don’t think there’s a part of me that isn’t different,” she said. “We take for granted a lot of things.”

Sylvester sensed that McJunkin will serve an unwritten sentence so long as her memory and those of others survive.

“Definitely,” he said. “I think it was a tough for her [Monday] because her former coach [Tech’s Alan Drosky] was in the room, as were people who had seen her excel. Even though she did a lot of great things, this is probably the one thing that she will be remembered for the most.”