HORN LAKE, Miss. — A man who got behind the wheel while drunk and killed a toddler is being released from prison after serving less than half his sentence.
Randall Owen hit a car near E. Tulane and Goodman Road in Horn Lake in 2004, killing 2-year-old Ethan Bayless.
Ginger Bayless was in the car with Ethan and her daughter when they were struck from behind by Owen.
Owen left the scene, but was later arrested and sentenced to 25 years. So when Bayless got a call saying he will be released next week, her heart sank.
“He liked to tell us he could not wait to play t-ball, and he was going to be able to play that coming summer,” Ethan’s mother, Ginger, said of her son. “He never did get to play.”
Ethan was only 2 years old when his family was forced to lay him to rest.
“An innocent child sitting in his car seat, playing, talking and then out of nowhere…it didn’t have to happen,” Ginger said.
Owen’s blood alcohol content at the time of the crash was more than four times the legal limit.
Doctors tried desperately to save Ethan, but he was declared brain-dead the next morning.
“His little fingers were moving,” Ginger said through tears. “He was trying, but sometime during that night, all that stopped happening.”
Owen was sentenced to 25 years.
The Bayless family was warned he could be released as early as 2021, but this week, they got a call from the prison.
Owens completed alcohol counseling and had his time reduced, thanks to legislation passed in 2008. That means their son’s killer will be back out on the streets next Friday.
“I’m angry at our lawmakers for putting such a law and like that,” Ginger said. “They should be ashamed of themselves.”
Members of the Bayless family are outspoken advocates against drunk driving. They speak every year to high school students.
Little Ethan’s organs were donated. A grandmother was able to see her grandchildren for the first time with his corneas.
“We will never know how many lives he’s probably saved,” Ginger said.
While they try to focus on the people Ethan’s story has helped, Ginger said her family will never understand why the man who took his life will get to live so much of his own outside a cell.
The Bayless family plans to contact lawmakers and fight for harsher punishment for DUI offenders.