Tuesday, February 3, 2009

"Laura Bush Killed a Guy"


Watching Family Guy the other night, I was astounded to hear (three times) the phrase, 'Laura Bush killed a guy'. What the hell? Did she really? Could the former First Lady really have killed someone? Why had I never heard about this?

I paused the DVD and zipped around the net for a while. And yes, the team at Family Guy were correct. Laura Welch (as she then was) really did kill a guy - not on purpose, not vindictively, but in a tragic accident.

It seems that the then 17-year old was driving to a party in her Chevy sedan at 50mph in a 55mph zone, near Midland, Texas. She drove through a stop sign, and collided with a car being driven by one Michael Douglas, who was thrown from his vehicle, and died of a broken neck.

Laura and the teenage girl passenger in her car were treated in hospital for minor injuries; a police investigation occurred, and no charges were laid. Neither driver was tested for their blood-alcohol reading.

The coincidences in the case are quite spooky. There is some evidence that Laura and the dead driver had been romantically attached, or at least that she had been interested in him. He was a top athlete, as well as being likeable and intelligent. He had also been voted Most Popular Junior a few years before at school.

Also, the boy's father was apparently in a car behind his son, and he witnessed the whole accident. Pretty tragic stuff.

There have been mumblings about the suspicious circumstances of the crash - that Laura Welch had shot through the stop sign on purpose, to crash into the side of the car being driven by the studly guy who jilted her. However, this sounds like a pile of nonsense. The most likely explanation is that Laura, just two days after her 17th birthday, excited and on her way to a party with her best mate, on a dark Texas road, stuffed up and accidentally ploughed into a vehicle also being driven by an inexperienced person.

Was she drinking? Possibly, but probably not.
Was there a cover-up of the whole event? Unlikely, as it happened before Laura was a famous person, and before she was linked to the powerful Bush clan.
Did she cause the accident? Well, she did fail to stop at a designated stop sign, so she was at least partly to blame.
Was it all just a terrible coincidence? Most likely.
Why did we never hear of this? The media, probably out of respect for the First Family, did not make big beans out of a story from 1963. And I'm sure that Mrs Bush has had some pretty massive guilt weighing on her conscience since that fateful night.

So, there you go: Laura Bush did kill a guy...but it's not as sinister as it sounds.

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