Caruso found guilty in Central School tragedy
Published on May 4th, 2005
WOBURN,MA-As the crowd quietly celebrated with whispered "Thank Gods" and tear-induced sniffles, Mark Schores sat sobbing in the front row of the courtroom, his trembling hands shuffling through several photographs of his six-year-old son.
Moments before, a six-person jury found a 66-year-old Stoneham man guilty of negligent operation of a motor vehicle, a swiftly rendered verdict that required about an hour's worth of deliberations from the three-men, three-women jury.
As lawyers, audience, and media members streamed back into the Woburn District Court trial room prior to the verdict announcement, 66-year-old grandfather Enrico Caruso sat grim-faced next to his attorney, rapidly ticking his left index finger against his thumb.
The nervous gesture lasting a mere seconds, the Stoneham man then shifted his right prosthetic leg beneath the defense-table, squaring his body with the judge's bench and locking his eyes downward in an emotionless glare.
That stoic stone-faced gaze wouldn't change for the rest of the trial - either for the jury's announcement of his guilt, or during two Stoneham fathers' bitter recollections of how Caruso had ruined their families after his car shot across 54-feet of sidewalk at the Central Elementary School, zeroing in on their two children's legs as they dangled from a cement wall.
For Schores, whose six-year-old son Jonathan reportedly required nearly 30 surgeries in the wake of the Stoneham crash, the pain was two-fold, for his wife's leg had also been maimed by the 66-year-old grandfather's errant Chevy Corsica.
"My life will never be the same. My wife is now a cripple for the rest of her life, and what we had before will never be the same. The sleepless nights in the hospital listening to my son cry and moan in pain is a father's worst nightmare," Schores said, his words choked with grief.
Will my son ever walk again? Will my wife ever smile again? Will we ever be happy again? I am scared about what the future brings and how I will make things better for my family again," the father added, his wife Linda staring yearningly at her husband as tears streamed down her cheeks.
In an angry chastisement of the 66-year-old, Stoneham resident Paul Eustace, whose then five-year-old son David lost his leg after the crash, condemned Caruso for letting the case go to trial, dragging the two Stoneham families back through the haunting accident.
"Sometimes, I wish I could let Mr. Caruso see all the memories in my head from the first month in the hospital. I wish he could have heard my son crying. If you would have just admitted your guilt, we wouldn't have had to be dragged through this again," Eustace said.
"You lost your leg because you failed to take care of your wound. My son lost his in a horrific accident on the sidewalk in front of his Kindergarten because of your ignorance and arrogance," the local father added.
With the resonating pain of the families in mind, Assistant Middlesex District Attorney Alexandra Clark recommended that Caruso be sentenced to 18-months in prison, five-years probation, and forever surrender his license to drive.
"I realize this defendant has no prior record, but again judge, I would suggest that jail time is appropriate," recommended Clark, who won't be able to make the 66-year-old's sentencing hearing on May 17.
During the trial's closing arguments last week, Caruso's attorney Bradford Keene argued that Clark and police officials were never able to provide any evidence proving his client's negligence last October.
Telling jury members that he understood how grisly the car crash victims' wounds were and how gut-wrenching those victims' testimony was, Keene advised the jury that the emotion surrounding the event wasn't enough to convict Caruso for negligence.
"In a court of law, the ends don't justify the means. You as jury members are not to take [into account] the results of the accident. You can not mix the evidence of the injuries with the lack of evidence of criminal wrongdoing," the defense attorney said.
Disputing Keene's insinuation that she failed to prove the 66-year-old's negligence, Clark countered that the proof in Caruso's wrong-doing was evident in the fact that he was driving on a sidewalk in front of an elementary school.
Referring to Keene's prior contention that investigators all recounted Caruso's insistence that his car revved out-of-control for no reason, Clark summarized the testimony of a State Police mechanic of 25-years, who reportedly couldn't find a single problem with the grandfather's car.
Then recalling the Stoneham man's statements to police officers indicating that he swung his steering wheel to the right to avoid hitting a vehicle stopped in front of him, Clark classified that action as a decision between property and people.
"He picked people over a car. He turned the car to the right, went over the sidewalk and picked people instead of hitting a car," Clark said.
"David Eustace lost his leg. Linda and Jonathan Schores' legs were crushed. They never had a chance to tell Mr. Caruso to stop that day. You can. Find him guilty."
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