hot cawfeee
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Anniversary is upon us...…...prayers to victims and families...…..someday we may know the answers
NY - 8 Die in Crash on Taconic State Parkway #3
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Very late response, but...
Thinking that "the hair of the dog" can cure a hangover is a very common belief. Not true, but an oft believed bit of urban myth. Plus, it gives heavy drinkers an acceptable way to drink unquestioned the following day.
hot cawfeee
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I have heard this backed up with "science"....I don't believe it. I have had many a hangover in my day...from wine, beer, hard liquor. The only help was a bottle of advil, water and sleep !
Kittybunny
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If you're an alcoholic, it's absolutely true. Even if you're just a heavy drinker. Normal drinkers would never dream of drinking more to feel better, but as a recovered alcoholic, I used to have to drink in the morning to get rid of the shakes, the nausea, the anxiety. You're in withdrawal from alcohol, so your body needs/craves alcohol. As soon as I had that first drink I felt SO much better. Alcohol is no different than any other drug in that regard - dependence causes withdrawal.
Yeah, I can see that for someone who is a daily drinker, the hair of the dog is true, because you have no plans to quit drinking; you're treating the withdrawal, not the hangover per se. For others, drinking after waking up with a hangover is treating the rebound withdrawal temporarily, but when the BAC goes back down to 0, the hangover returns to at least some degree. At least this is how I learned it in pathology.
Lots of anecdotal evidence supporting/refuting.
As Diane could well have been a closet heavy drinker, I think her drinking to battle against a hangover sounds far more plausible than some of the other crazy theories (poisoned by her husband, somehow accidentally drinking methanol out of a gatorade bottle-ignoring the vodka bottle in her immediate vicinity, the serious tooth abcess theory put out by her husband's spin doctor way after the fact, low blood sugar-even though autopsy showed low normal, which is actually still normal-, gestational diabetes even though 2 years postpartum, etc.). I would totally buy the idea that she felt like crap, so drank to feel normal and went on to overdo it (10 shots of vodka and a bunch of weed isn't really adhering to the hair of the dog theory I've heard about, which is ingesting a bit to stop the shaking and nausea).
This case is so interesting to me by virtue of the fact that people want so desperately to assign her behavior to things beyond her control, some of them so far fetched as to be laughable, rather than admitting the sad fact that even people who appear to have it all together sometimes do prove that appearances can definitely be very deceiving. Sometimes people who appear to be perfect go on to do horrible horrible things.
Lots of anecdotal evidence supporting/refuting.
As Diane could well have been a closet heavy drinker, I think her drinking to battle against a hangover sounds far more plausible than some of the other crazy theories (poisoned by her husband, somehow accidentally drinking methanol out of a gatorade bottle-ignoring the vodka bottle in her immediate vicinity, the serious tooth abcess theory put out by her husband's spin doctor way after the fact, low blood sugar-even though autopsy showed low normal, which is actually still normal-, gestational diabetes even though 2 years postpartum, etc.). I would totally buy the idea that she felt like crap, so drank to feel normal and went on to overdo it (10 shots of vodka and a bunch of weed isn't really adhering to the hair of the dog theory I've heard about, which is ingesting a bit to stop the shaking and nausea).
This case is so interesting to me by virtue of the fact that people want so desperately to assign her behavior to things beyond her control, some of them so far fetched as to be laughable, rather than admitting the sad fact that even people who appear to have it all together sometimes do prove that appearances can definitely be very deceiving. Sometimes people who appear to be perfect go on to do horrible horrible things.
hot cawfeee
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I agree with you...it is interesting b/c of the refusal to state/accept/acknowledge that anything was wrong with Diane, with her marriage....I would love to speak to some of her co-workers and get their take on Diane and what she was really like.
NJSleuth91
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(Sorry in advance for world's longest post.)
We went hiking upstate yesterday and I was reminded of this case (as usual) as we were coming back on Route 17, especially as we went past the Ramapo service area where Diane was seen.
Thinking back on it, I think this was actually the first true crime case I was ever interested in, way back in 2012. In college I went out to a bar with this guy I knew and for some reason, "There's Something Wrong With Aunt Diane" was playing on the TV there. I was so riveted by it that I could barely keep up a conversation with the guy (oops....) I only saw part of it but when I went home I immediately looked it up and watched the whole thing.
I think part of why this case interested me so much was the personal connection...I grew up in Queens very close to the town where the Hance family lived. Also at the time, I would travel back and forth between my college town and NYC on Route 17 about once a month.
Anyway my take on this case...I was actually discussing this elsewhere several months ago and I rewatched the documentary at the time, and this is what I wrote back then about what I think happened.
Timeline and analysis of such:
around 9:30 AM -- They leave the campground and the campground owner saw no signs of intoxication.
9:56 AM -- They go to the McDonalds in Liberty. The staff saw no signs of intoxication. Google Maps says it takes about 17 minutes to get there from the campground, although that is without traffic, plus the 9:30 time of leaving the campground was only an estimate. She gets an orange juice there which some speculate she used as a mixer with the vodka from the car.
10:46 AM -- They go to the Sunoco station in Liberty which is very close to the McDonalds. The time is about consistent with five kids eating breakfast, playing in the McDonalds playground, etc. The store clerk saw no signs of intoxication. Some people on Youtube think she was driving aggressively as she drove away from the pumps and onto the road, which could be from intoxication or just the local cultural tradition of driving aggressively (I live in NJ and everyone drives like a maniac and only some of them are drunk...also statements by some of her friends indicate she was an aggressive driver in general). In any case if she was intoxicated it was only mildly at this point.
11:37 AM -- She calls Jackie Hance and has a seemingly normal conversation and says they are delayed due to traffic. Remember though this was 2009 and most people had flip phones and upstate the signal can be not great, so even if she was slurring her words or something they may not have been able to hear it due to subpar reception.
around 11:45 AM -- Witnesses see her on the side of Route 17 looking like she is vomiting, I believe this was Francis and Jean Bagley but not sure where this was (https://nypost.com/2009/11/09/taconic-ma-twice-car-sick/).
around 12 PM -- Gerald Salerno Esq. sees her driving erratically and aggressively on I-87, around Harriman. He says that she was "gripping onto the steering wheel, appearing to concentrate on driving" but also that her aggressive driving "appeared to be done with some level of precision." It is most likely that she started drinking between 10:46 AM and 12 PM. It takes about 30 minutes to feel the effects of alcohol after drinking it.
12:13 PM -- She goes through the Harriman toll plaza on I-87. Depending on where she was, without traffic it should have taken her around 50 minutes to get to this point from Liberty according to Google Maps, and it took her about an hour and a half. But if there was traffic or if she stopped somewhere else to get the Advil, the kids stopped for the bathroom, etc. it could have taken longer. I haven't seen any reports on whether there actually was traffic but I do know in the summer there can often be a good deal of traffic from upstate to NYC as people come back from weekend trips.
around 12:30 PM -- Francis and Jean Bagley see her (again?) driving aggressively on I-87 to the point of almost causing an accident. She drives into the truck area of the Ramapo Travel Plaza. She gets out and looks like she is vomiting again. According to Google Maps it should take about 12 minutes without traffic to get here from the Harriman toll plaza and it took her about 17 minutes.
sometime between 12:35-1:35 PM -- She consumes the marijuana according to toxicology reports. Although if it was an edible, which I suspect it was for a variety of reasons (no paraphernalia found in the car, the kids would have noticed and maybe said something if she smoked it, the effects are 100% consistent with my experience of edibles, and it is VERY common with edibles to accidentally consume way too much without realizing since they are often stronger than people realize), maybe it was consumed long before that (from what I remember they take an hour or more to fully kick in and then you are hit with the effects suddenly).
12:55 PM -- Wrong number dialed from her phone, no information on how long the call lasted, if anyone picked up, or whether it was her or one of the kids dialing. Clearly this was not the precipitating event of what happened, as some people have speculated, since she was most likely already intoxicated for up to two hours before that.
12:58ish-1:02ish PM -- She calls Jackie Hance and sounds disoriented, call lasts for about 2 1/2 minutes and ends abruptly at 1:01 PM. Warren Hance calls back. He says she didn't sound like herself and even called him by her husband's name at one point. I believe this is consistent with confusion caused by overconsumption of marijuana in combination with alcohol. The kids were crying in the background of the call and said that Diane couldn't see, which again is consistent with marijuana over-intoxication in my experience (you get tunnel vision and out of body experiences).
1:02 PM -- She goes through the Tappan Zee Bridge tollbooth which was on the Westchester side of the bridge (ie. the tollbooths happen after one has already crossed the bridge). According to Google Maps it should take about 24 minutes without traffic to get here from the Ramapo Travel Plaza and it took her about 34 minutes, although this is not 100% accurate since they tore down the Tappan Zee bridge and built a replacement bridge in almost the same location, plus we don't know the exact time she left the Ramapo service area. During this time she is still on the phone with Warren Hance and then pulls over to the right of the road immediately after the toll plaza. One of Warren Hance's daughters says that she sees a sign for Tarrytown and the image shown in the documentary is of the Tarrytown sign hanging from an overpass, which I believe is the overpass for Route 9.
1:10 PM -- Three wrong numbers are dialed from her phone, which could be her or one of the kids.
1:15 PM -- Warren Hance tries to call Diane as he is driving up to Tarrytown to find her and it goes to voicemail. Her phone was later found on the concrete divider just past the tollbooths, so she must have been sitting there in the car from 1:02 PM to sometime between 1:10 and 1:15 PM.
1:15-1:33 PM -- She is driving on an unknown route between where her phone was left and 41°08′34″N 73°48′51″W (listed on Wikipedia as where she got onto the Taconic State Parkway). Varying routes here take 10-15 minutes.
1:35 PM -- Crash happens. She is described as looking straight ahead and seemingly totally unconcerned with and oblivious to the fact that she is driving on the wrong side of the road.
So one of the biggest things is that the timeline is not really that inconsistent with how long it would take to drive normally with all the stops that were mentioned. In the documentary one of her family members claimed that the trip took four hours when it should have taken under an hour and that is completely untrue. There aren't really any big chunks of missing time especially if there really was traffic, which as I mentioned there most likely was. Everything she consumed was most likely in the car while driving.
I don't think this was a murder suicide. People who commit murder suicide usually have a past history of abuse and/or mental illness and she didn't as far as we know. Her family, including the Hances, and most importantly her friends described her as a person with flaws and demons, but not an abuser or an unstable person. I also don't think there was any affair coverup or anything.
I think she was a closet alcoholic and an addict. She intended to drink just a little (most likely vodka from the bottle in the car mixed with orange juice from the McDonalds...but her definition of "a little" could objectively be a lot if her tolerance was high) and consume a small amount of marijuana (most likely in the form of an edible) to get through the stressful drive with five kids and maybe her tooth abscess. She had probably done this many times before with no problems, as a number of people do.
However the edible turned out to be way more powerful than she had realized. I believe the full effects may have hit her between 11:40 and 11:45 AM causing her to go from having a normal conversation to vomiting and driving erratically. Overconsumption of edibles alone can definitely cause vomiting, in combination with alcohol even more so. She lost contact with reality, went into a blackout and/or a state of dissociation, and continued to consume more alcohol than she intended, continued to drive when she was in no state to drive, and had no conscious realization of the fact she was driving on the wrong side of the road. I believe that this is the most likely explanation.
On the possible route and reasoning behind it:
Another thing, I checked out the routes from the Tappan Zee bridge tollbooths to where she got on the Taconic State Parkway and one route makes sense.
She knew that Warren Hance was coming to get her and that he might possibly send police or an ambulance to her location for her "medical emergency," and she couldn't risk being found out that she was driving drunk and high with kids in the car. It would shatter her perfect supermom image, possibly cause her to lose her job, and nobody would ever trust her again. That's why she left her phone, so that it would be harder to find her. I don't know if she was necessarily in a total blackout but possibly she was in and out of a blackout, a "rolling blackout" if you will (that happened to me when I had edibles plus one or two drinks, so with ten drinks but a higher tolerance it would definitely be possible).
I think that possibly she intended to just drive around on random back roads for a while until she sobered up more and then she would come home and claim a medical emergency. I believe she got on the Saw Mill River Parkway going north and drove up a few exits, then got off at the Bedford Road exit. Warren Hance already knew she was in Tarrytown so she had to get away from there. From there she made a left turn onto Pleasantville Road, a two-lane road, and it was only a short distance to the Taconic Parkway off-ramp where she got on. If you look at the off-ramp on Google Maps, besides the "Wrong Way" and "Do not Enter" signs, you can't really tell it's a highway off-ramp, like you can't see the highway until you're actually on it, and it just looks like a random country road. There is no signage for the Taconic Parkway near the off-ramp either.
If she was experiencing rolling blackouts it's very possible she didn't even realize anything was wrong while she was getting on the off-ramp and even driving on the highway. It may sound weird but intoxicated drivers drive the wrong way on the highway all the time and most of them have no idea until they crash.
At first I thought she got on the Saw Mill River Parkway going north when she intended to go south to Long Island, then realized her mistake and got off and drove to the Taconic Parkway to go back south but just got on the wrong way. But the reason why I don't think this is as likely an explanation is because there was no signage on Pleasantville Road or on the Saw Mill River Parkway indicating that this was a route to the Taconic Parkway. Unless she was familiar with the area or just assumed she would reach a highway going south if she continued driving, it doesn't make any sense that she would know this road went to the Taconic Parkway. There was no indication she was using GPS in the car.
On edibles, etc.:
Anyway on the subject of edibles...unfortunately I have had two bad experiences with edibles, not realizing how strong they were. I had intermittent blackouts as I described, out of body experiences, paranoia, I felt like reality wasn't real anymore (dissociation) and my consciousness was "resetting" itself every few seconds, time slowed down a ridiculous amount (a minute seemed to take five minutes), vomiting, trouble speaking (I thought I was speaking normally but nobody could hear what I was saying), trouble seeing, and trouble understanding what was going on. Other people had to direct me where to go, and the first time I had to use process of elimination to figure out which corner my boyfriend's building was located on based on the amount of lights on each corner because I couldn't see properly. Both times I was in an unfamiliar place where I had never been before, and the first time there were also unfamiliar people around, which added to the terror of the experience.
Both times when I had bad experiences it was due to the people who gave me the edibles being unclear about the dosage. Both times I assumed that one edible was the intended unit for getting high. It later turned out that the intended dosage was like 1/4 or less of what I took, which I was not informed of. I later learned that this is pretty common. If Diane had the same issue, she could have ended up in the same state as me. The other thing is that this high lasts for a long time. For me it lasted until I went to sleep, which was about 12 hours later the second time, and there were still after-effects the next day.
Wrong-way crashes on the highway with intoxicated drivers happen fairly often. Even if I knew how to drive I would have realized during my bad edible experiences that I was in no state to operate a vehicle. But I also have always been one of those "any amount of alcohol = no driving" people because that's what I was always taught growing up. If Diane got drunk and high in the first place, she probably got drunk and high while driving all the time. Perhaps she had even been very intoxicated while driving before. People are shocked that she would drive intoxicated but it happens. People drive drunk all the time, and many of them do it with kids in the car, and many of them aren't the people you would expect to do it. She isn't the first and she isn't the last to do it, or to kill innocent people because of it. I think people think it's a murder-suicide because they don't realize how common this is. There was even a news story ABC did (it's on Youtube) about one of those "wine moms" who became an alcoholic and she admitted to driving drunk with her kids.
Also Diane had control issues and so in her mind, she had to keep driving so she wouldn't be found out. First to try to get the kids home and keep the facade going, and then once it became clear that something was wrong, to hide from her brother and the police/ambulance so that she wouldn't lose everything. Weed causes paranoia too so she would have been too paranoid to just park somewhere and wait it out, especially if she thought people were looking for her. She was likely trying to go to an unfamiliar area on purpose, possibly out of Westchester County, so that it would take them hours to find her and she would be sobered up by then.
Ultimately the main reason that rules out murder-suicide is that there is no motive for her to kill her nieces. Jackie Hance was one of her closest friends. If there had been any animosity between her and her brother, the nieces would never have gone upstate with her in the first place. Also, murder-suicides don't just come out of nowhere. There is generally escalating abuse leading up to it, and in this case there was no evidence of abuse at all.
We went hiking upstate yesterday and I was reminded of this case (as usual) as we were coming back on Route 17, especially as we went past the Ramapo service area where Diane was seen.
Thinking back on it, I think this was actually the first true crime case I was ever interested in, way back in 2012. In college I went out to a bar with this guy I knew and for some reason, "There's Something Wrong With Aunt Diane" was playing on the TV there. I was so riveted by it that I could barely keep up a conversation with the guy (oops....) I only saw part of it but when I went home I immediately looked it up and watched the whole thing.
I think part of why this case interested me so much was the personal connection...I grew up in Queens very close to the town where the Hance family lived. Also at the time, I would travel back and forth between my college town and NYC on Route 17 about once a month.
Anyway my take on this case...I was actually discussing this elsewhere several months ago and I rewatched the documentary at the time, and this is what I wrote back then about what I think happened.
Timeline and analysis of such:
around 9:30 AM -- They leave the campground and the campground owner saw no signs of intoxication.
9:56 AM -- They go to the McDonalds in Liberty. The staff saw no signs of intoxication. Google Maps says it takes about 17 minutes to get there from the campground, although that is without traffic, plus the 9:30 time of leaving the campground was only an estimate. She gets an orange juice there which some speculate she used as a mixer with the vodka from the car.
10:46 AM -- They go to the Sunoco station in Liberty which is very close to the McDonalds. The time is about consistent with five kids eating breakfast, playing in the McDonalds playground, etc. The store clerk saw no signs of intoxication. Some people on Youtube think she was driving aggressively as she drove away from the pumps and onto the road, which could be from intoxication or just the local cultural tradition of driving aggressively (I live in NJ and everyone drives like a maniac and only some of them are drunk...also statements by some of her friends indicate she was an aggressive driver in general). In any case if she was intoxicated it was only mildly at this point.
11:37 AM -- She calls Jackie Hance and has a seemingly normal conversation and says they are delayed due to traffic. Remember though this was 2009 and most people had flip phones and upstate the signal can be not great, so even if she was slurring her words or something they may not have been able to hear it due to subpar reception.
around 11:45 AM -- Witnesses see her on the side of Route 17 looking like she is vomiting, I believe this was Francis and Jean Bagley but not sure where this was (https://nypost.com/2009/11/09/taconic-ma-twice-car-sick/).
around 12 PM -- Gerald Salerno Esq. sees her driving erratically and aggressively on I-87, around Harriman. He says that she was "gripping onto the steering wheel, appearing to concentrate on driving" but also that her aggressive driving "appeared to be done with some level of precision." It is most likely that she started drinking between 10:46 AM and 12 PM. It takes about 30 minutes to feel the effects of alcohol after drinking it.
12:13 PM -- She goes through the Harriman toll plaza on I-87. Depending on where she was, without traffic it should have taken her around 50 minutes to get to this point from Liberty according to Google Maps, and it took her about an hour and a half. But if there was traffic or if she stopped somewhere else to get the Advil, the kids stopped for the bathroom, etc. it could have taken longer. I haven't seen any reports on whether there actually was traffic but I do know in the summer there can often be a good deal of traffic from upstate to NYC as people come back from weekend trips.
around 12:30 PM -- Francis and Jean Bagley see her (again?) driving aggressively on I-87 to the point of almost causing an accident. She drives into the truck area of the Ramapo Travel Plaza. She gets out and looks like she is vomiting again. According to Google Maps it should take about 12 minutes without traffic to get here from the Harriman toll plaza and it took her about 17 minutes.
sometime between 12:35-1:35 PM -- She consumes the marijuana according to toxicology reports. Although if it was an edible, which I suspect it was for a variety of reasons (no paraphernalia found in the car, the kids would have noticed and maybe said something if she smoked it, the effects are 100% consistent with my experience of edibles, and it is VERY common with edibles to accidentally consume way too much without realizing since they are often stronger than people realize), maybe it was consumed long before that (from what I remember they take an hour or more to fully kick in and then you are hit with the effects suddenly).
12:55 PM -- Wrong number dialed from her phone, no information on how long the call lasted, if anyone picked up, or whether it was her or one of the kids dialing. Clearly this was not the precipitating event of what happened, as some people have speculated, since she was most likely already intoxicated for up to two hours before that.
12:58ish-1:02ish PM -- She calls Jackie Hance and sounds disoriented, call lasts for about 2 1/2 minutes and ends abruptly at 1:01 PM. Warren Hance calls back. He says she didn't sound like herself and even called him by her husband's name at one point. I believe this is consistent with confusion caused by overconsumption of marijuana in combination with alcohol. The kids were crying in the background of the call and said that Diane couldn't see, which again is consistent with marijuana over-intoxication in my experience (you get tunnel vision and out of body experiences).
1:02 PM -- She goes through the Tappan Zee Bridge tollbooth which was on the Westchester side of the bridge (ie. the tollbooths happen after one has already crossed the bridge). According to Google Maps it should take about 24 minutes without traffic to get here from the Ramapo Travel Plaza and it took her about 34 minutes, although this is not 100% accurate since they tore down the Tappan Zee bridge and built a replacement bridge in almost the same location, plus we don't know the exact time she left the Ramapo service area. During this time she is still on the phone with Warren Hance and then pulls over to the right of the road immediately after the toll plaza. One of Warren Hance's daughters says that she sees a sign for Tarrytown and the image shown in the documentary is of the Tarrytown sign hanging from an overpass, which I believe is the overpass for Route 9.
1:10 PM -- Three wrong numbers are dialed from her phone, which could be her or one of the kids.
1:15 PM -- Warren Hance tries to call Diane as he is driving up to Tarrytown to find her and it goes to voicemail. Her phone was later found on the concrete divider just past the tollbooths, so she must have been sitting there in the car from 1:02 PM to sometime between 1:10 and 1:15 PM.
1:15-1:33 PM -- She is driving on an unknown route between where her phone was left and 41°08′34″N 73°48′51″W (listed on Wikipedia as where she got onto the Taconic State Parkway). Varying routes here take 10-15 minutes.
1:35 PM -- Crash happens. She is described as looking straight ahead and seemingly totally unconcerned with and oblivious to the fact that she is driving on the wrong side of the road.
So one of the biggest things is that the timeline is not really that inconsistent with how long it would take to drive normally with all the stops that were mentioned. In the documentary one of her family members claimed that the trip took four hours when it should have taken under an hour and that is completely untrue. There aren't really any big chunks of missing time especially if there really was traffic, which as I mentioned there most likely was. Everything she consumed was most likely in the car while driving.
I don't think this was a murder suicide. People who commit murder suicide usually have a past history of abuse and/or mental illness and she didn't as far as we know. Her family, including the Hances, and most importantly her friends described her as a person with flaws and demons, but not an abuser or an unstable person. I also don't think there was any affair coverup or anything.
I think she was a closet alcoholic and an addict. She intended to drink just a little (most likely vodka from the bottle in the car mixed with orange juice from the McDonalds...but her definition of "a little" could objectively be a lot if her tolerance was high) and consume a small amount of marijuana (most likely in the form of an edible) to get through the stressful drive with five kids and maybe her tooth abscess. She had probably done this many times before with no problems, as a number of people do.
However the edible turned out to be way more powerful than she had realized. I believe the full effects may have hit her between 11:40 and 11:45 AM causing her to go from having a normal conversation to vomiting and driving erratically. Overconsumption of edibles alone can definitely cause vomiting, in combination with alcohol even more so. She lost contact with reality, went into a blackout and/or a state of dissociation, and continued to consume more alcohol than she intended, continued to drive when she was in no state to drive, and had no conscious realization of the fact she was driving on the wrong side of the road. I believe that this is the most likely explanation.
On the possible route and reasoning behind it:
Another thing, I checked out the routes from the Tappan Zee bridge tollbooths to where she got on the Taconic State Parkway and one route makes sense.
She knew that Warren Hance was coming to get her and that he might possibly send police or an ambulance to her location for her "medical emergency," and she couldn't risk being found out that she was driving drunk and high with kids in the car. It would shatter her perfect supermom image, possibly cause her to lose her job, and nobody would ever trust her again. That's why she left her phone, so that it would be harder to find her. I don't know if she was necessarily in a total blackout but possibly she was in and out of a blackout, a "rolling blackout" if you will (that happened to me when I had edibles plus one or two drinks, so with ten drinks but a higher tolerance it would definitely be possible).
I think that possibly she intended to just drive around on random back roads for a while until she sobered up more and then she would come home and claim a medical emergency. I believe she got on the Saw Mill River Parkway going north and drove up a few exits, then got off at the Bedford Road exit. Warren Hance already knew she was in Tarrytown so she had to get away from there. From there she made a left turn onto Pleasantville Road, a two-lane road, and it was only a short distance to the Taconic Parkway off-ramp where she got on. If you look at the off-ramp on Google Maps, besides the "Wrong Way" and "Do not Enter" signs, you can't really tell it's a highway off-ramp, like you can't see the highway until you're actually on it, and it just looks like a random country road. There is no signage for the Taconic Parkway near the off-ramp either.
If she was experiencing rolling blackouts it's very possible she didn't even realize anything was wrong while she was getting on the off-ramp and even driving on the highway. It may sound weird but intoxicated drivers drive the wrong way on the highway all the time and most of them have no idea until they crash.
At first I thought she got on the Saw Mill River Parkway going north when she intended to go south to Long Island, then realized her mistake and got off and drove to the Taconic Parkway to go back south but just got on the wrong way. But the reason why I don't think this is as likely an explanation is because there was no signage on Pleasantville Road or on the Saw Mill River Parkway indicating that this was a route to the Taconic Parkway. Unless she was familiar with the area or just assumed she would reach a highway going south if she continued driving, it doesn't make any sense that she would know this road went to the Taconic Parkway. There was no indication she was using GPS in the car.
On edibles, etc.:
Anyway on the subject of edibles...unfortunately I have had two bad experiences with edibles, not realizing how strong they were. I had intermittent blackouts as I described, out of body experiences, paranoia, I felt like reality wasn't real anymore (dissociation) and my consciousness was "resetting" itself every few seconds, time slowed down a ridiculous amount (a minute seemed to take five minutes), vomiting, trouble speaking (I thought I was speaking normally but nobody could hear what I was saying), trouble seeing, and trouble understanding what was going on. Other people had to direct me where to go, and the first time I had to use process of elimination to figure out which corner my boyfriend's building was located on based on the amount of lights on each corner because I couldn't see properly. Both times I was in an unfamiliar place where I had never been before, and the first time there were also unfamiliar people around, which added to the terror of the experience.
Both times when I had bad experiences it was due to the people who gave me the edibles being unclear about the dosage. Both times I assumed that one edible was the intended unit for getting high. It later turned out that the intended dosage was like 1/4 or less of what I took, which I was not informed of. I later learned that this is pretty common. If Diane had the same issue, she could have ended up in the same state as me. The other thing is that this high lasts for a long time. For me it lasted until I went to sleep, which was about 12 hours later the second time, and there were still after-effects the next day.
Wrong-way crashes on the highway with intoxicated drivers happen fairly often. Even if I knew how to drive I would have realized during my bad edible experiences that I was in no state to operate a vehicle. But I also have always been one of those "any amount of alcohol = no driving" people because that's what I was always taught growing up. If Diane got drunk and high in the first place, she probably got drunk and high while driving all the time. Perhaps she had even been very intoxicated while driving before. People are shocked that she would drive intoxicated but it happens. People drive drunk all the time, and many of them do it with kids in the car, and many of them aren't the people you would expect to do it. She isn't the first and she isn't the last to do it, or to kill innocent people because of it. I think people think it's a murder-suicide because they don't realize how common this is. There was even a news story ABC did (it's on Youtube) about one of those "wine moms" who became an alcoholic and she admitted to driving drunk with her kids.
Also Diane had control issues and so in her mind, she had to keep driving so she wouldn't be found out. First to try to get the kids home and keep the facade going, and then once it became clear that something was wrong, to hide from her brother and the police/ambulance so that she wouldn't lose everything. Weed causes paranoia too so she would have been too paranoid to just park somewhere and wait it out, especially if she thought people were looking for her. She was likely trying to go to an unfamiliar area on purpose, possibly out of Westchester County, so that it would take them hours to find her and she would be sobered up by then.
Ultimately the main reason that rules out murder-suicide is that there is no motive for her to kill her nieces. Jackie Hance was one of her closest friends. If there had been any animosity between her and her brother, the nieces would never have gone upstate with her in the first place. Also, murder-suicides don't just come out of nowhere. There is generally escalating abuse leading up to it, and in this case there was no evidence of abuse at all.
mrsselig
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Thanks for your detailed and through post and timeline! This case has disturbed/fascinated me for years, and I've watched "There's Something Wrong With Aunt Diane" numerous times......
Although I have zero experience with marijuana edibles or otherwise, your theory makes sense to me! I've never considered this a murder/suicide. I've always been of the opinion that she knew she had only a shortish drive home, was hungover, and perhaps drank more heavily/regularly than her family realized. Since it does take awhile for alcohol to hit your system/make you feel it, I think it crept up on her. There was THC in her system too as you mentioned and I totally agree with your theory of edibles vs. smoking/the kids would have noticed/said something. Dumb question here. . . were edibles available during this time? Again, zero experience with edibles/pot...plenty with vodka
)
I totally can see the marijuana (in whatever form) hitting her really hard combined with the alcohol and possibly not much sleep. . .
Great breakdown. . . . . I think next weekend I'm going to watch the documentary again, and print out your timeline and review as I watch. One of the most frustrating parts about the documentary is how the family tried to portray Diane as a saint. You're spot on when you note that people drive drunk and high with kids in the car all the time. It's sad, but it's the truth.
Although I have zero experience with marijuana edibles or otherwise, your theory makes sense to me! I've never considered this a murder/suicide. I've always been of the opinion that she knew she had only a shortish drive home, was hungover, and perhaps drank more heavily/regularly than her family realized. Since it does take awhile for alcohol to hit your system/make you feel it, I think it crept up on her. There was THC in her system too as you mentioned and I totally agree with your theory of edibles vs. smoking/the kids would have noticed/said something. Dumb question here. . . were edibles available during this time? Again, zero experience with edibles/pot...plenty with vodka
) I totally can see the marijuana (in whatever form) hitting her really hard combined with the alcohol and possibly not much sleep. . .
Great breakdown. . . . . I think next weekend I'm going to watch the documentary again, and print out your timeline and review as I watch. One of the most frustrating parts about the documentary is how the family tried to portray Diane as a saint. You're spot on when you note that people drive drunk and high with kids in the car all the time. It's sad, but it's the truth.
NJSleuth91
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You're welcome! I'm glad you found it useful.
Yeah I think I've watched it either 3 or 4 times since 2012, as well as read pretty much everything available on the internet about the case.
Dumb question here. . . were edibles available during this time? Again, zero experience with edibles/pot...plenty with vodka
Definitely! I think they've been around for as long as weed has been around.
(In fact my first bad experience with edibles was in June 2011 and my second one was August 2012...so I watched this documentary right in between the two, maybe why I have always thought that was a possibility....)
In my experience it fully hits you within about an hour of eating it...and then you go from "mildly pleasant and fun high" to "I've made a huge mistake" in about 0.05 seconds.
Let me know what you think!
That tends to be the case in general with not speaking ill of the dead. But there are clues to indicate that she really wasn't...all the little allusions to her being kind of domineering and impulsive. Like her friend saying that Diane would get mad at her for not driving aggressively and would lean over and honk her horn for her. Or her husband saying she bought an entire SUV on a whim and their attic was full of years' worth of clothes for the kids...but he said it as a quirky anecdote instead of a "hmm, maybe that is a sign of larger issues with self-control and lack of healthy coping skills."
10K people a year die in the US as a result of drunk driving. And think of how many cases happen where nobody dies. It's not like it's a rare occurrence. Maybe we'd like to think it is.
BTW look up the Carmen Huertas case...very similar circumstances, even to the extent of it happening in the NYC area. But in that case she survived and only one of the kids in the car died.
mrsselig
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Thumbs up to all the above. . I'll def let you know once I've watched the doc again while comparing with your timeline. Great to know about the edibles . . . . had no clue they've been around so long. This just solidifies my theory about this case (which agrees with yours). Driving under the influence has become a real societal taboo; and the cost to "get out" of a DUI has increased enormously. I think it's now around 10-15 thousand dollars.....! You make a good point; it's taboo and we like to think it's rare but unfortunately those that get caught are only a tip of the iceberg.
I took a girl's trip last year, to run a marathon in New York State and have some R and R. On the return trip to the airport, 6:00 am or so, I was a passenger and as we emptied the fridge at our Air BnB I made a spontaneous "to go" Bloody Mary. Strong. Hey, I had to throw out good vodka. I figured, no harm no foul, I was doing zero driving that day including my return home after landing at O'Hare. About 30, 40 minutes into the drive.....it suddenly hit me and I felt totally out of control. At a gas stop I tossed the remains of the Bloody and started pounding water. It was crazy how I felt normal for so long, and in a split second, felt totally wasted!! Thankfully I recovered quickly and was normal at the airport. . . . but since that happened I have wondered about Diane and her drive, and how she probably looked/felt/acted normal for quite some time into her fatal drive.
Def looking up the Carmen Huertas case, thanks so much for the recommendation. Again, I appreciate your insights so much!!!
I took a girl's trip last year, to run a marathon in New York State and have some R and R. On the return trip to the airport, 6:00 am or so, I was a passenger and as we emptied the fridge at our Air BnB I made a spontaneous "to go" Bloody Mary. Strong. Hey, I had to throw out good vodka. I figured, no harm no foul, I was doing zero driving that day including my return home after landing at O'Hare. About 30, 40 minutes into the drive.....it suddenly hit me and I felt totally out of control. At a gas stop I tossed the remains of the Bloody and started pounding water. It was crazy how I felt normal for so long, and in a split second, felt totally wasted!! Thankfully I recovered quickly and was normal at the airport. . . . but since that happened I have wondered about Diane and her drive, and how she probably looked/felt/acted normal for quite some time into her fatal drive.
Def looking up the Carmen Huertas case, thanks so much for the recommendation. Again, I appreciate your insights so much!!!
I don't know. As a mid age, empty nest, women who now drinks often I just don't see her accidentally getting that smashed. I can see her maybe adding some vodka to her OJ and maybe popping a pot brownie in her mouth. I know that a shot is a drink. And a few shots would get me hammered. When I make rum and diets I know how much to add. She would know too and to purposely add a lot while driving kids around. That is the unusual part according to her family and friends. And the seen vomiting times in the timeline...one was pretty soon after McDonalds. So she must have pounded the vodka. Maybe the 50 mins they were at McDonalds she took her OJ and loaded it with vodka and slammed it. But that indicates some emotional distress of some sort. And if she did accidentally get way more hammered than she planned, I'd think she'd make a stop like at the mall or somewhere to let the kids run around and let herself sober up. Seems like she didn't WANT to sober up. Again, indicates emotional distress of some sort.
Also, just saw an interesting theory on Reddit. Someone said that high functioning alcoholics might be more cautious to drink around family so as not to get discovered. And then once they are free of family eyes they might go overboard to get their fix. So maybe, with family at their camper that weekend, she drank a normal level for other folks but a low level for her being an alcoholic. Then that morning on the drive, without other adult eyes on her, she just couldn't hold back anymore and chugged a bunch.
Curious, does anyone know what the address was where she was heading...street or just town even? Kinda curios to put on google maps and see how long it would take. Found town (west babylon). And right now, 9:40am on weekday during rush hour, it would take 2 hours and 45 mins. And it takes an hour and 41 mins to get to the spot of the accident from the campground. Yet she took 4 hours?
Curious, does anyone know what the address was where she was heading...street or just town even? Kinda curios to put on google maps and see how long it would take. Found town (west babylon). And right now, 9:40am on weekday during rush hour, it would take 2 hours and 45 mins. And it takes an hour and 41 mins to get to the spot of the accident from the campground. Yet she took 4 hours?
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TaconicRider
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Thanks for your detailed and through post and timeline! This case has disturbed/fascinated me for years, and I've watched "There's Something Wrong With Aunt Diane" numerous times......
Although I have zero experience with marijuana edibles or otherwise, your theory makes sense to me! I've never considered this a murder/suicide. I've always been of the opinion that she knew she had only a shortish drive home, was hungover, and perhaps drank more heavily/regularly than her family realized. Since it does take awhile for alcohol to hit your system/make you feel it, I think it crept up on her. There was THC in her system too as you mentioned and I totally agree with your theory of edibles vs. smoking/the kids would have noticed/said something. Dumb question here. . . were edibles available during this time? Again, zero experience with edibles/pot...plenty with vodka
I totally can see the marijuana (in whatever form) hitting her really hard combined with the alcohol and possibly not much sleep. . .
Great breakdown. . . . . I think next weekend I'm going to watch the documentary again, and print out your timeline and review as I watch. One of the most frustrating parts about the documentary is how the family tried to portray Diane as a saint. You're spot on when you note that people drive drunk and high with kids in the car all the time. It's sad, but it's the truth.
I agree with this hypothesis. The orange juice and vodka bottle. Stopping along the way. Kids playing at McD would give a person plenty of time to spike a cup of orange juice to the brim ( after drinking half the juice out. ) While the kids played , she may have dashed out to the vodka bottle. Vodka has no smell - thats why abusers use it. It almost undetectable. Being that it was 2009 , vaping THC wasnt around . However, going on a camping trip with children - you wouldnt want to smoke it In front of them , edibles would work out better. Edibles have been used since the 1960’s. After looking at the overhead map of the Pleasantville Rd and exit .... I can see how she messed up. My hope is that there is much better signage at the exit by now. Such as “Wrong way” “ do not enter” Maybe flashing lights. .The coroner said she ingested 10 ounces. This is a drunk driving case. Im not sure why its still being debated. Maybe because no family member wants to admit they knew she was a timebomb. But who would admit that. Because that would put fault on themselves, for knowing she couldnt be trusted . Her driving path will never be known unless you check the satellite footage. No body has access to that.
hot cawfeee
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Would like to see this investigated again. There are so many docus being done....am sure people more willing to talk now (Diane's co-workers), not to mention any film that didn't make the final cut !
Jmoose
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Yeah, I like this idea. People kkow more about this woman than they have said-although I don’t think that it ultimately matters to the people who lost loved ones, but I do think everyone would like to know the whole story. I think Diane’s brother and sister-in-law knew she was a heavy drinker and pot smoker; I just think that it never occurred to them that she’d put all of those kids in such peril. But I think they knew. Other people did, too-like her horrible husband.
hot cawfeee
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Jmoose.....Friend I hear you !!!! IIRC in Jacky Hance's book she mentioned Diane's pot-smoking....I have always felt she was hung-over from the night before and drank and smoked pot to take off the hangover effects with such a long drive ahead. Her nieces had to be home by a certain hour for play/dance rehearsal and Diane was running late ? IMO sounded out of character for her. Diane got some oj at Mc Donalds for her vodka and let the kids play while she was taking the "edge" off. The vodka bottle was by her side in the car, not packed away with foodstuffs from the weekend trip......Also I think that the phrase "There's something wrong with Aunt Diane" was never uttered. I think Warren said to Jacky Somethings wrong with my sister/with Diane
Jmoose
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I have never felt the need to take the edge off of a hangover, by drinking more alcohol, but it seems like some people do it-and I think that Diane did this. Does this even work? Maybe not, because she also smoked pot, possibly because the alcohol didn’t work.
I can’t believe this woman made most of the money in the family, and still couldn’t make her husband behave like a man. It’s such BS that he was so childlike and unhelpful to her. What did she actually need him for?
I can’t believe this woman made most of the money in the family, and still couldn’t make her husband behave like a man. It’s such BS that he was so childlike and unhelpful to her. What did she actually need him for?
hot cawfeee
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He was referred to as Diane's third child by his own mother....nice parenting mom! lol
CreatureIDontKnow
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Thinking of this case today. Just read through all the threads. What a doozy. I hope the families are doing alright...as alright as possible, at least.
@mrsselig sbm bbm I was curious too, so headed down the wiki rabbit hole.....Although I have zero experience with marijuana edibles or otherwise, your theory makes sense to me!... Dumb question here. . . were edibles available during this time? ....
Briefly, NY state legalized medical cannabis legalization in 2014 & recreational marijuana in 2021 (a bit oversimplified).* So seems neither medical nor recreational cannabis was legally available in NY then. But that would not have precluded someone getting edibles illegally in NY or legally in another state.
If Diane had been a DIY grow-your-own and bake-your-own type person, seems likely that fam, friends, maybe LE would have been aware. So seems likely that info would have surfaced in the intervening yrs.
Back on topic to the victims, those children. RIP.
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BTW, edibles have been around for a looong time:
1. "The earliest mention of cannabis-infused food was as far back as 2000 B.C. in India."
2. "The first mention of edibles in Europe appeared in a cookbook titled De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine, which translates to “On Honorable Pleasure and Health” written by Bartolomeo Platina in 1465.[14]"
3. "The first cannabis edible recipe appeared in the United States in the early 1960s in a cookbook called The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook .... her "brownies" became synonymous with cannabis in the growing 1960s counterculture."**
The first two were before my time, but I vaguely recall seeing "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" movie back in my teens.
* Cannabis in New York - Wikipedia.
** Cannabis edible - Wikipedia