When Debbie Smith moved her son to Chico State in fall 2004, she started planning his graduation party. Now, she is planning a documentary and a state law.
One year ago Thursday, Smith's son, Matthew Carrington, died of water intoxication in the basement of an unrecognized Chico fraternity during an initiation event.
"I hate that I don't get to have the party for him," Smith said, crying over the phone from her Pleasant Hill home. "He worked so hard."
Smith said she's amazed at how her emotions have evolved over the past year. When she first found out about her son's death, she was in shock. When she learned about the details of the death, she was angry. After the summer passed, she started to sympathize with the Chi Tau fraternity brothers who were on trial for charges that included misdemeanor hazing and felony manslaughter.
"My friend said, 'Debbie, I could see you change,'" Smith said.
When "Dateline NBC" interviewed Smith in August 2005, she was angry. She said she hopes NBC doesn't air the interview.
When Smith was past being angry, she formally forgave John Paul Fickes, Jerry Ming Lim and Gabriel Maestretti during a meeting with the men at District Attorney Mike Ramsey's office after they had been sentenced to jail. She is working with them on an anti-hazing documentary.
"Even from the beginning, you had to know they never intended to kill Matt," Smith said.
The men went into the office expecting to get yelled at, not forgiven, Maestretti said.
"That was probably the best feeling I've ever had in my life," he said. "I was in awe -- still kind of am."
Maestretti said that although there's nothing he can do to make up for Matt's death, he feels obligated to make sure no one else dies from hazing or goes to jail for hazing.
"It feels like you're living your life for two people," he said.
Maestretti and Smith have talked a few times since he's been in jail about the focus of the documentary. He said he thinks the documentary needs to focus on the legal consequences of hazing and target "the average guy."
"What's going to stop it is to see us in jail," he said. "Someone needs to think of themselves."
Smith said she agrees with Maestretti, but she also wants the documentary to make people realize they could kill a friend by hazing.
"We're not just saying, 'Don't get caught,'" she said. "We're saying, 'Don't do it.'"
Smith is also trying to make it easier to convict people of hazing in California.
Matt's Law is being proposed to the California Senate this month. If the law is passed, it will make hazing a misdemeanor even if the hazing doesn't injure anyone. The law would also make it illegal for anyone to haze, not just students.
Smith said people who want the law passed should write letters of support to state Sen. Tom Torlakson.
Although she is making headway with her hazing prevention plans, Smith said coping with her son's death is just as hard as it was a year ago, and she cries every day.
"I don't think you ever heal," she said.
Smith and her son, Travis Smith, felt the impact of Carrington's death harder recently when they went to Arnold, Calif., a place where they had last visited while Carrington was still alive.
The family stayed at the Yellow Dog Inn in Arnold in 2003 so their sons could have the white Christmas they had always dreamed of. Carrington and his brother learned how to snowboard on that trip, and the family has called it "the perfect Christmas" ever since, Smith said.
When the family goes on vacations now, Travis brings a friend, but it's not the same, Smith said.
"It's just not the same without Bro, because they were just so close," she said. "There's just such a hole."
Jennifer Scholtes can be reached at jscholtes@orion-online.net
Be the first to comment on this article!