BESSEMER CITY, N.C. -- Friends and family of both the victim and the man charged in a fatal drunk driving crash are struggling to accept what happened Sunday night.
On Monday, Laura Fortenberry's classmates visited the scene of the accident that took her life to remember what they lost.
“She was very sweet to everybody. You couldn’t find a person that didn’t like her,” said Hanna Greene, a friend and junior at North Gaston High School.
Only bits of mangled metal remain on Dallas-Cherryville Highway where the head-on collision claimed the life of the 17-year-old.
The accident happened right in front of Brenda Free’s home, she called 911.
“I thought about the officers who had to go and tell her parents,” says Free. “That has to be something terrible.”
Troopers say that 28-year-old Howard Pasour had been drinking and was driving when he crossed the center line. His Jeep collided head-on with a car carrying Fortenberry, 17-year-old Evan Griffith, and 19-year-old Victoria Iffergan, who was driving.
Both Iffergan and Griffith were taken to a local hospital.
Pasour has a long rap sheet with several DWI convictions and multiple drug arrests.
His family took him home from the hospital after the Sunday night accident before troopers arrested him.
“He was still groggy. He didn’t know what was going on,” said his father, Clay Pasour. “He had not at the time grasped the fact of what happened.”
The family's pastor stopped by the Pasour home to comfort them.
“It’s somebody’s daughter and I would maybe felt better if he was dead, rather than somebody else’s child due to his bad behavior,” said Clay Pasour.
Howard Pasour has been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, habitual DWI and aggravated felony death by motor vehicle.
