My friend and our fellow rider, Cecy Krone was killed by a drunk driver this past September. The sentencing hearing has a deadline for input of February 14^th, 2000. I've included a few of the letters that have been sent so far.

For more on Cecy and on the accident go to: http://www.wolfassociates.com and to: http://www.mtbr.com/passion/passion.html and to http://www.cascade.org/raw

There are also additional samples of letters to the Prosecutor's office and to the Probation office at: http://www.mtbr.com/passion/messages/261538.html

Please do your part to make our roads safer for riding.

The probation officer can be contacted at:

Patricia Bonelli

Marin County Probation Department

3510 Civic Center Drive

San Rafael, California 9403-4195

If you can't snail mail a letter, please e-mail one to Oren Noah by the 10th and he'll make sure that a hard copy gets to the court. orennoah@inreach.com

- Thanks - Saul

A letter from Cecy's Friend Larry:

Dear friends,

I hope you are spreading the word that the letters to the probation

department need to be received by Feb. 14. I appreciate Oren and Kathy and

Adeline spreading the word. I also appreciate the great showing at the

pleading. I talked to our friend Paul Gorman last night and he said that the

San Diego Cycle Vets were passing a letter to be signed at their weekly

ride on Saturday. Thank you Katherine. I think this is a great idea.

Perhaps some more of you could write a letter that could be signed at rides

this weekend. (like the Coffee Roasters ride/the Forest Knolls Freewheeler

Ride/ the Olympic Club ride/ a Trips for Kids Ride /Ride Across Washington

members and of course the Marin Cyclists and San Diego Bicyle Club Saturday

Ride). Remember personal letters count a lot.

What follows is a draft of my letter to the department which I hope will

help motivate some of you. Also maybe somebody could post a generic club

letter that we could download and sign at meetings or rides. Time is

running out.

Thanks Larry Nigro

February 2, 2000

Patricia Bonelli

Marin County Probation Department

3510 Civic Center Drive

San Rafael, California 9403-4195

Ms. Bonelli,

I am writing to give my input about the sentencing of Michelle Young in the

death of Cecelia 'Cecy' Krone. I feel strongly that the defendant be

sentenced to state prison for the seven years four months maximum allowed

under the plea bargain. This needs to be done for our community, for Cecy

and for her loved ones, of which I am one.

Cecelia Krone moved to Marin two and a half years ago to live with me.

Sadly, we had decided to live apart shortly before her death. I still love

her dearly.

No other event in my life has affected me like the killing of Cecelia.

Never will life seem as innocent and as safe.

I was on a different ride than Cecy on September 4, l999. I rode up

Cecy's hill (also known as Moon Hill) in the opposite direction that Cecy

traveled. I arrived at the top of the hill with two other cyclists about

45 minutes after she had been airlifted out. The CHP was just about to

commence its forensic work. The first thing we noticed was the titanium

bicycle sheered in half. I thought it was the worse bike accident I had

ever seen.

My friend said that the bike was a Merlin. I knew the victim was Cecy when

I saw her new water bottle and the rose-petal like pieces of her maroon

helmet scattered across the road. I really can't find words to describe

how I felt. Somehow we rolled to the bottom of the hill. I ran over to

the Presbyterian church to pray.

I picked up Cecy's sister Mary and her mother Adeline Krone at the airport.

The plane had been thirty-five minutes late; we arrived at John Muir

Hospital thirty minutes after Cecy passed. We sat with her body. Her mom

said that she remembered when Cecy's oldest sister Linda died of cancer.

Cecy was eighteen months old. Shortly before she died Linda had looked up

and said, "Mom!" Then Adeline said, "When Linda died I thought of Little

Women. There were four sisters then there were three. I never thought

there would be just two."

I looked at Cecy's sisters Kathy and Mary and thought they have gone from

being the two middle girls to being the oldest and youngest.

Our friends arrived later at the hospital. They told me that Cecy was

killed by a woman who was very drunk and had her son in her car. I

remember leading Cecy's family home. I have taught school for the last

ten years at San Geronimo School just down the hill from where Cecy was

killed. I remember thinking, "Dear God, don't let it be someone in our

school."

But I soon found out that San Geronimo fourth grader John Oliver Young was

the last person to see and hear Cecy before she was hit. John attends the

other of the two small school programs on the San Geronimo campus. Since

the accident, I see John almost everyday running and playing on the

playground. It always takes my breath away.

Please recommend that the defendant serve the full mid-term of her

sentence. She will then be in jail for just over three more years. In

three years John Young will still be in our K-8 school district. Cecy's

wonderful oldest nieces, Kara and Addie, who enter college next year, will

still be at their universities, I will still ride my bike to work on the

path that Cecy took, the monument for Cecy will still be standing on the

hill, and my second grade students will still be running in and out of my

room on their way to their grade school class.

What will have changed in our lives is the living presence of Cecy. Around

five hundred people attended her memorial service at Roy Redwoods. I

remember the comment of John Dillon of the Presbyterian Church - "I believe

that it is against the will of God that a mother bury a child", and I

remember what I told my female students that were in the audience, "Cecy

was the kind of woman we would like you to grow up to be."

Please let me share a few of my favorite images of her over the last four

years. The first two are of Cecy working as an occupational therapist. I

picture her taking a patient in a wheelchair down the street from Kentfield

Rehabilitation Hospital to lunch at the Taqueria in Kentfield. She is

gabbing and smiling the whole way. The patient who may have been feeling

depressed earlier in the day, can't help but smile around all this happy,

positive energy.

(My father suffered a cardiac arrest in December and has a serious brain

injury and now, ironically, is in a rehabilitation hospital. And Cecy

isn't here to help my family understand this horrible injury.)

The second image is of Cecy letting a little boy, fascinated by her thick

brown hair and reluctant to work, pull her braid just once before they get

down to business. Last year Cecy decided to work as a school occupational

therapist. Cecy loved to play and be with children, including all our

nieces and her nephew Max. I have heard from families whom she worked with

of how hard her death has affected their children.

The third image is of Cecy volunteering for Trips for Kids. I see Cecy

encouraging a group of city kids on their first mountain bike ride. She

loved to tell about hanging out at the back of the group and getting the

most reluctant girl into the ride. I think she remembered back to high

school when she did not see herself as very athletic.

The fourth image is of Cecy with Tori on her lap. Tori was Cecy's black

and white Japanese bobtail cat. She loved him so much. I remember how I

couldn't ever let him out of the house; Cecy was afraid that a mountain

lion, or a raccoon, or an errant driver might get him. She was so careful.

Maybe losing a sister early in life does that to you. I went down to

Ontario where the second of two memorials were held for Cecelia and slept

at her sister Mary's. Tori cuddled with me all night and kept looking at

me. We both look for Cecy.

The last image is of the first time I met Cecelia. It was December 26,

l996 in the parking lot at the University of California at San Diego. A

hundred people were preparing for a six day bike trip. I couldn't help but

notice this short female cyclist riding circles around the parking lot.

She just couldn't stop smiling with joy. She was so beautiful.

I have friends in alcohol recovery who tell me how closely they are

following this case. They hope that the sentence will be seen as tough.

Image is important.

I think about two other mothers in our district who are having problems

with drinking. What message does the court send them if society does not

mete out at least seven years?

It is a incredibly tragic when a young child has to care for a negligent

parent. That day the defendant was so drunk that she could not have

possibly loaded all those animals in that car. John did. And it was John

who saw Cecy from the backseat and screamed. And it was John who waved

down the passing motorist and yelled, "We just hit a bike rider." And it

was the motorist, not the defendant, who told John to stay in the car when

he go out to follow his stumbling mother. I believe that John needs to be

separated from his mother and that she needs to be sent to a state prison.

I believe this separation will ultimately help him.

A teacher of thirty years at our school said it clearly the other day, "She

needs to be punished as well rehabilitated." Since the accident I have

heard stories about the defendant's long term drinking problem. The

saddest is the one an employee for the school district told me. At the end

of last school year he saw her in the parking lot obviously very drunk and

picking John up. He ignored the little voice in his head and told

himself, "Well the office must know."

When John was brought to his grandmother's on September 4th. Her first

response was, "She's drunk."

Strict rehabilitation, after the defendant's prior injury accident, has

clearly failed. Sadly, even killing Cecy did not stop her denial. The

first time the defendant's lawyer asked her to be released to a local

facility, he revealed that the 'defendant tells me that the victim was

standing in the middle of the road'. The defendant started lying

immediately about her actions. Sitting there I felt incredibly hurt by

what the defense later admitted was a lie. I thought of all the times I

waited for 'careful Cecy' to cross the street.

I believe accepting less than the mid-term would be tragic and painful for

our friends, our family, the bike community, and much of the San Geronimo

Valley; many of whom came to the memorial for Cecy. Please make the roads

safer for the children I teach and for my friends who drive, walk and ride

in West Marin. Please offer solace to Cecy's loved ones that her sweet,

good, feisty life is valued. Please send a message to those that drink and

drive that their irresponsible life-threatening behavior will be punished

severely. Please remind our family and friends to protect our children and

community from this homicidal behavior by not turning away when we see a

drunk getting behind the wheel. And please require that Michelle Young

never drive again.

Cecy said in her letter to the editor, 'There is enough beauty in Marin

for all to share,'. With Cecelia gone, there is a little less beauty for

me and a lot more sadness.

Sincerely,

Lawrence L. Nigro

A Personal Note From Me:

Many thanks to those of you who have sent in your letters already. I have been

forwarding the copies I receive to Cecy's mother and sister. They mean a great

deal, not only to "the system," but also to Cecy's family and friends.

Also, please do what you can to prevent or deter drunk driving. Tonight, I

was quite late coming home from work, because I was following an obviously impaired

driver many miles past my freeway turnoff, making numerous cell phone calls to

the CHP, in the hopes that (s)he would be arrested and taken off our streets.

I don't regret the effort, but I was unsuccessful in following the car through

city streets and no police officer showed up while I was following. Cecy's death

mandates that I, at least, do everything I can to protect the living. I hope

that you will share that view.

Thanks.

- Oren Noah