Soldier pleads guilty in 2005 crash that killed 2 - The Killeen Daily Herald
Haywood said he had been drinking for over three hours with his father at a bar in Devine before the wreck, which occurred on Interstate 35 when the truck Haywood was driving struck a commercial vehicle. “I hear him screaming every night,” Haywood said during testimony Tuesday in a Fort Hood courtroom. Haywood’s account of the crash took on the air of a Greek tragedy as he described his rocky relationship with his father, whom he said was physically abusive to his mother before the couple divorced when he was teenager. But in the bar on the night of the crash, Haywood said he and his father began to reconcile. “He told me he was proud of me for the first time in my life,” Haywood said. Four months after the accident, Haywood said he deserted his unit at Fort Hood because of financial troubles. During this time, Haywood said he told his family he had been discharged from the Army. Haywood’s wife, Leona, said she didn’t know her husband deserted the Army until after he was apprehended by U. S. Marshals in September. On the stand, Leona Haywood described her husband as a hard-working family man, and asked Connally for lenience. Source: kdhnews.com
