ATLANTA — A semi-truck plowed into the back of their SUV while it was stopped for construction on an Indiana highway in August 2013, but so far, the truck driver who caused the crash has not faced any consequences.
He and his wife Dora Williams say it's impossible to understand the pain of losing seven family members, two grown daughters, four grandchildren, and an uncle, at once.
Nikki Williams, 35, and her children, Jazmin, 7, and Jamin, 5, lived in the Atlanta area.
William's sister, Lindsey, 27, and her children Yasmin, 5, and Arielle, 3, lived in Indiana, but were planning a move to Atlanta, according to family members.
“It's real hard because birthdays are all together around the holidays," Gerald Williams told Fleischer. "Grandbabies running around and jumping all on the furniture."
Dora Williams added, "We're going to miss them terribly, we miss them, we really do."
The group was driving back from a family birthday party, when they say traffic slowed on the highway.
Their SUV had completely stopped when the tractor trailer slammed into them from behind, forcing the vehicle into another semi-truck that was stopped in front of them. The SUV burst into flames on impact.
"You have 80,000 pounds of material coming at you, he didn't touch the brakes, there were no skid marks," Gerald Williams said. "They didn't have a chance under god's sun to survive that."
Indiana State Police investigated the crash as a reckless homicide.
However, 16 months later, internal records still listed it as pending.
In October, an Indiana prosecutor decided 'negligent behavior alone is not enough to obtain a criminal conviction' and filed no charges against the driver, Howard Stratton.
"Something had to make him take his eyes off the road. You're sitting high in the air, there's nothing to obstruct your vision,” Gerald Williams said. "He fell asleep, he was texting, he was doing something that was irresponsible."
Gerald Williams says he knows that responsibility well, because he drove a truck for 20 years.
"It's sickening to know that a brother trucker took my family, in my wildest dreams I would have never thought that," said Gerald, "Once he gets in that truck he's responsible not only for his life, but the lives of thousands of people."
Griffin Transportation, based in Michigan, says Stratton has not driven for the company since the crash and that he is no longer employed there. An attorney for the company says Stratton's managers never asked for his explanation of what happened.
Channel 2 Action News filed open records requests for Stratton's driving record and found three speeding tickets, two of them while in a commercial truck. And less than one month before he crashed into the Williams family, an officer ticketed Stratton for passing a weigh station, and noted his logbook showing how long he'd been awake and driving was not current. Federal records show the company was caught five times that month for failing to keep those records, or its drivers driving too long without resting.
"The company should be held responsible for that if they're not training these drivers to adhere to the law," said Gerald Williams.
The Williams family has gotten more than 3,000 signatures from around the country, trying to change the prosecutor's mind about the crash. To this day, they've never even heard an apology from the driver, or the company.
"Being a human being, [if] I made 7 lives disappear, I would have to go to that family and say I'm sorry," Gerald Williams said.
"This thing has torn us apart," Dora Williams tearfully added. "But we're strong, we think of the good times with them, we're going to see them again I do believe that."
WSBTV
