To widow, law looks hollow to widow

On Tuesday, Dava Abbott marked a grim anniversary.

Two years ago on May 22, her husband, Tom, was killed in a head-on collision in Caswell County.

He was riding on a motorcycle, on his way to a race in Virginia, when another driver crossed the center line.

The one blessing was that Tom Abbott, 56, was killed instantly.

"Everything else is a nightmare," his widow said.

Dava Abbott and her daughter, a Peace College student, were visiting her son in Alaska when they got the call from the Highway Patrol.

After they returned home and got through the funeral, Abbott learned that the driver charged in her husband's death, Michael A. McGhee, was well known to cops and courthouse officials in Caswell County.

On the morning of the accident, he'd been released from jail after serving time for failure to pay child support.

He was charged with involuntary manslaughter, crossing the center line, possession of drugs and driving while his license was revoked.

But Abbott soon learned that McGhee's record, especially behind the wheel, was far longer, and more troubling.

In retrospect it reads like a road map destined to lead to someone's death. It still does.

McGhee, now 46, had been charged with DWI three times between June 1990 and October 1999. He'd been charged half a dozen times with driving while his license was revoked, and seven times for driving without insurance. He had begun using fake tags or registration. He had been busted for drugs.

Yet for killing Tom Abbott -- a 22-year employee of Mallinckrodt, a Vietnam vet who served in the 82nd Airborne and was once nominated for a Morehead Scholarship -- McGhee received a total of eight months. He served four months in the county jail before trial and four months in prison.

Abbott also won a civil judgment of $1 million against McGhee -- money she never expects to collect.

But neither a million-dollar judgment nor the taking of another man's life seemed to get McGhee's attention -- or the court system's.

Last February, one month after being released from prison for killing Abbott's husband, McGhee had another accident.

He crossed the center line, was driving while his license was revoked and was in possession of drugs.

Sound familiar? The only thing different from the accident that claimed Tom Abbott' life is that this time, by some stroke of luck, no one was killed.

Yet for the February 2006 accident he received a meager 18-month suspended sentence.

Messages left at McGhee's home on Wednesday were not returned.

In Abbott's view, it's only a matter of time before McGhee collides with another innocent person.

When she learned of McGhee's latest activities, she called the Caswell County prosector's office with an offer.

"This man is going to drive somebody's car," she said. "You know he will."

"So why don't I just drive my husband's truck up there and leave it with the keys in the ignition?

"My husband doesn't need it anymore."