And then today, a toxicology report from the Pima County Medical Examiner's office floored me. According to test results, Elisa had cocaine in her system. She also had the legal limit -- 0.08 -- of blood alcohol content.
I wondered if this report could be talking about the same person, the one who practiced her stage technique in front of a mirror in her room, who sang so proudly for millions, who learned Spanish to perfect her craft. It simply didn't fit.
We reported the disheartening follow-up to the tragic story on the 5pm, 6pm, and 10pm news. Between the early shows and the late one, I took a couple of phone calls.
The first caller, identifying himself as a friend of the family asked us how we could report this? How could we do this to the family?
I said I'm sorry, but we can't ignore things like this. We have an obligation to the truth, which is what our viewers expect of us, and sometimes the truth hurts. We can't leave out a part of a story just because it makes somebody look bad.
He says we hadn't done this sort of thing with other people.
"Who?" I asked. Name names. He couldn't.
The guy was beginning to get on my nerves. The more he talked, the more he implied I didn't care about the family.
"Have you ever lost a child?"
He pushed me over the line. I lost a good friend, a reporter, to a train accident, I said.
"I talked with her father. I talked with her mother, sitting on the bed in [Elisa's] room!"
So I bloody well knew about loss!
We went back and forth. He continued to complain about how we could do this to the family. I apologized, but I also got madder as he didn't see my point.
"What do you want from me? Do you want me bleeding on the set on my knees? What do you want?"
Business became personal, because the story became personal. This is the reason you're not supposed to get personally involved with stories, but I already crossed that line two months ago. Now this guy was pushing my buttons, slapping me with the white glove and challenging my professionalism. I wasn't going to let him get away with it.
Fortunately, I was calmer when Elisa's father called. He echoed the same sentiment, in a more civil way. I explained why we made the decision we did, and I offered to run a statement from him. He didn't think it would matter, but I kept asking, and finally I got one to run with the story on the 10pm news. Right after viewers heard about the drugs and alcohol, they heard these words from her father:
"Alisa is with our Lord in Heaven and nobody can harm her now. We are people of faith and the love and support that the community has shown us will never be shaken or watered down."Anger still smolders inside me.
I'm angry with myself for getting angry.
I'm angry with people who think they know how the TV news business works when they don't know a thing. I'm angry with people who simply assume we care more about a good story than about the people behind them. It's a gutless, stereotypical charge, one easily believed by the masses without any serious thought. It's getting old.
I'm angry with Elisa's parents. According to her father, they heard Elisa had used from the detectives. Maybe they didn't know until after the night I interviewed them, but the least they could've done was own up to the truth. They ignored the opportunity to put a moral on the story: this is what happens to you when you drink and do drugs and drive.
And I'm angry with Elisa. She was blessed with a loving family and a growing talent. She had opportunities. And yet, somewhere in this picture she chose to do coke. She chose to drink and drive. Did she feel invincible? Did she think she was too successful in life to lose?
I will never understand why people who have everything in the world going for them abuse alcohol and drugs.
Both callers tonight said she made a mistake. "Have you ever made mistakes in your life?"
Forgetting your anniversary is a mistake. Smoking dope is a decision made consciously. That alcohol and coke didn't get into her system by accident. She made the choice. Before that deadly night in February she surely heard a variant of the "just say no" message multiple times. And if her parents, her teachers and her friends didn't tell her that, shame on them all.
As I explained to her father, most people will remember Elisa for her gifts to the world. We would all rather remember the way she lived rather than how she died. I'll remember it, too. But I'll also remember her life didn't have to end like it did. She cannot be held blameless for it. And if she were sitting in front of me now like her mother did two months ago, I'd have only one question for her.
Why?
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