Mass. Man Charged in Teen’s Alcohol Death
June 6th, 2007 Posted by: Dr. Cox
An Easthampton, Mass., man has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after allegedly buying alcohol for his daughter and her friends, one of whom died after drinking, the Boston Globe reported Sept. 14.
Timothy E. Parent, 46, pled not guilty to the manslaughter charge and two counts of procuring alcohol for a minor. Police say Parent bought a 1.75-liter bottle of vodka for his 15-year-old daughter, who drank it with friend Alexis E. Garcia, also 15. Garcia was later found dead in her bathtub; authorities ruled that she died from drowning and alcohol poisoning, with a blood-alcohol content of between .28 percent and .33 percent.
Parent is the first Massachusetts resident to face a manslaughter charge in a case where providing alcohol led to a minor’s death.
The victim’s mother, Renee Garcia, said she believes the charges against Parent are “going to help, as long as we know that he is punished for what he did and it makes other people realize that you can’t” buy alcohol for minors.
“As a parent, I trusted them,” said Garcia. “She went to their house all the time; we’ve been to the beach together. I won’t be able to trust any other parents ever again with my other two. You think these people are looking out for them, and it just isn’t right.”
“We just can’t figure out why [Parent] did it,” said Easthampton Police Chief Bruce W. McMahon. “I think in his mindset, he was just trying to be a nice guy to his daughter … It’s kind of a warped sense of doing the right thing.”
David P. Hoose, Parent’s lawyer, said his client “has been living with this for the past seven months. It has been enormously stressful on him and his family. This was a tragic, tragic outcome. He recognizes that whatever stresses and difficulties he’s had pale in comparison to whatever difficulties the Garcia family has had to endure.”