Publish Date: 6/13/2005

Man gets eight years for death

Alexa Hoffman
Daily Record Staff Writer

Heaving sobs punctuated much of today’s sentencing of the man convicted of killing a 39-year-old woman by crashing his vehicle into hers when he was drunk.

Mark Proctor was sentenced to eight years in the Colorado Department of Corrections for vehicular homicide while driving under the influence, a Class 3 felony, followed by five years of parole. The prosecution has 90 days to file a request for restitution.

Chu Kin (Britt) Graff was killed Nov. 11, 2003, when Proctor ran a stop sign at Third Street and Colo. 115 in Penrose, traveling about 76 miles per hour in a 30-mile-per-hour zone and slammed the front of his black Ford Ranger pickup into the side of her Nissan Sentra. He reportedly had a blood-alcohol content of .167 when he was tested about two hours after the accident. The legal b.a.c. limit at the time of the accident was .10 in Colorado. It is now .08.

The coroner who responded to the scene said she was killed instantly.

“I was surprised he did not receive the maximum for all the considerations,” said Luke Armstrong, an accident reconstructionist with the Colorado State Patrol, including the speed Proctor was traveling and his two prior drinking offenses. “Hopefully, it helps Mr. Proctor and helps the family with the grieving.”

“We all want life for him in prison,” said Allan Brooks, Graff’s fiance at the time of the accident, following the sentencing. But “because they treat it like an accident, (he’s) not going to get the time that he deserves. It’s not enough, but what can you do?”

Brooks read one of many statements presented to Judge David Thorson by members of the Graff’s family and friends.

When the two first met, Brooks said, he almost had given up hope for a relationship and was focusing his life on his work. Then, he went on a date with Graff, “and they shut the restaurant down around us.

“I found a new meaning in my life,” he said, “and we both knew we wanted to spend our lives together.”

As Brooks spoke, Graff’s friends and family bowed their heads in the first row of the courtroom and cried.

“We had so much to look forward to,” he said. Now, “at the strangest places and times, I have an overwhelming feeling of grief and cry uncontrollably.” Brooks said he also calls her phone number occasionally, hoping she’ll be at the other end to pick up.

“I want everyone, including Mr. Proctor, to know what a wonderful person she was,” said Harriet Graham, a friend of Graff’s. “I’m asking the court to give him the maximum sentence so he can sit there every day and think of what he’s done.”

Family friends also read statements from Graff’s niece, Priscilla, 9, and nephew, Ray, 12, who only learned of their aunt’s death a few weeks ago.

“My parents said we were going to Cañon City to visit my aunt but … we went to a cemetery,” Ray said. “She was a very good person. Why did she die? Life is hard without her. She fills life with excitement and joy. No matter what the judge sentences, it won’t bring back my aunt.”

The little girl wrote how she recalled going to Six Flags Elitch Gardens with Graff and Brooks and couldn’t ride one of the roller coasters because of her height. Graff promised they would go the next year, when she was taller, but it never happened.

“A sentence still runs through my mind and shatters my heart,” she wrote. “This sentence is: My aunt is dead.”

When it appeared no one was going to speak on behalf of Proctor except those who had written about his character for his pre-sentencing report, his wife stood and interrupted his attorney, Dennis Hartley.

Face pink still from crying as the victims’ statements were read, she turned and faced Graff’s family and friends.

“I’m sorry, on behalf of my husband,” she said, gasping for breath between words, tears running down her face. “He’s not a monster.”

She said his alcohol consumption was substance abuse and countered that Proctor did not make the choice to drink; “it is a compulsion.”

The 41-year-old man sat with his head down as his wife continued.

“I’m sorry for your pain,” she said, barely able to get the words out around her sobbing breaths. “I feel it, too. If he could, he would take her place.”

It was a sentiment his attorney echoed only moments later.

“He truly would, and he’s told me many times he would take her place,” Hartley said. From the front row, one of Graff’s friends whispered, “I wish he could.”

“Where do I find words to try and ease the pain that I have caused so many people?” Proctor asked a moment later, voice strained. “Sorry does not cut it. I made a decision that day, and the prosecutor’s right. I was not thinking. I don’t know what else I can do except help other people realize you can’t do this.”

He was referring to his recent talks with church and other groups on the consequences of drinking and driving, a community service Judge Thorson said he hoped Proctor would continue once out of prison.

“If I looked at nothing but the offense,” Thorson said, “you would deserve every day of 12 years (and) more than that.” The maximum the Rifle man could have received was 12 years.

But Thorson said he had to consider the person standing in front of him, not just the crime.

However, the judge said, although Proctor probably has stopped drinking and may be attempting to teach the others about the dangers of his crime, he also has two prior drunk driving convictions.

“What a world this would be ... if people didn’t learn to not drink and drive until they killed somebody,” Thorson said.