6-Year Prison Sentence in DWI Homicide Case

The tone for a Friday sentencing in a March 2012 DWI homicide was forgiveness, despite the loss of a father, son and husband, 43-year-old Salvador Garcia.

Randolph “Randy” Curry, 56, was sentenced to six years in prison, according to prosecutor Rey Garduño.

Curry pleaded no contest in November to vehicular homicide and admitted his prior convictions. Family members said afterward that Curry’s blood alcohol was 0.22 percent and that he had seven prior arrests involving drunken driving, but he has been remorseful about the death. The presumed level of intoxication is 0.08 percent.

Garcia was killed on N.M. 337, near Escabosa when Curry, who was in the northbound lane, crossed into the southbound lane of traffic and hit Garcia, a Tijeras resident, on March 22.

Family members — including his widow, Shelby; daughter, Gabriella, a freshman at East Mountain High School; son Robert and Garcia’s mother Cecilia — had met before the sentencing with Curry and separately with his family and prosecution and defense attorneys.

“We talked about forgiveness,” Gabriella said after the sentencing.

“Coping with my papa’s death, my family has gotten stronger and closer and we have learned to appreciate that the little things in life are actually the important things,” she told Judge Kenneth Martinez during the sentencing hearing. “Every day, my heart still feels like there is something missing.”

In her statement to the court, Gabriella said she wanted a minimum sentence for Curry, believing that he didn’t die that day “because he still has great purpose to fulfill in the eyes of God, and having to be locked up will not better his situation as an alcoholic.”
— This article appeared on page A6 of the Albuquerque Journal