A mother’s question: How can she have lost a daughter while woman responsible goes free?

Editor’s update: On Thursday, Breeana McClain of Charlotte pleaded guilty to the charge of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the 2020 collision on North Tryon Street that killed Morgan Wetherbee, the district attorney’s office said. In return, McClain received the sentence detailed below. She will not serve jail time.

In a courtroom set aside for the legal reckoning of dozens of violent deaths, Melody Wetherbee will carry this question: What value does the criminal justice system place on a single, stolen life?

She’s referring to Morgan, of course.

Morgan Wetherbee, Melody’s daughter, was 19 when she died on Dec. 4, 2020, seven months after police say a speeding car on North Tryon Street spun out of control, hurdled across a median and three lanes of traffic, and crashed head-on into Morgan’s Toyota.

At 10:30 a.m. Thursday, the other driver, Breeana McClain, 27, of Charlotte, is scheduled to enter a plea on the involuntary manslaughter charge filed against her after Morgan’s death.

At the time of the collision, police also charged McClain with speeding, driving recklessly, and having an open alcoholic container in her 2007 Nissan. She was also cited for failure to carry insurance, driving with a revoked license, and failing to register her car.

Outside the scope of legal charges and while Morgan was struggling for her life, McClain also copied a photo of the teen’s mangled car and used it to create a GoFundMe page. She asked for $2,800 while reversing many of the details of the crash.

According to the GoFundMe post shared with The Charlotte Observer, McClain said that she, not Morgan, had been struck head-on by an uninsured driver. While police said in their original crash report that McClain had suffered only minor injuries, she claimed on her GoFundMe post that she had required multiple major surgeries that had kept her from working.

When Morgan’s family members asked McClain to take the post down, they say, she accused them of harassment and said Morgan had caused the accident by speeding and talking on her phone. She also claimed that the crash had cost her the life her unborn child.

Involuntary manslaughter is a criminal charge involving an “unintentional death.” In North Carolina, a person with McClain’s minimal police record who is convicted of the charge faces a maximum sentence of 23-37 months in prison or as little as 12 months of probation.

The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office has offered McClain the chance to plead guilty to the charge in return for a 15-27 month suspended sentence and three years of probation, according to details McClain’s prosecutor shared with Morgan’s mother.

The plea deal also carries a 30-day jail sentence. But since McClain already spent some five weeks in custody after her December 2020 arrest, it’s likely that Superior Court Judge Lou Trosch will reduce the jail time to time served, allowing McClain to walk out of the courthouse with a probationary sentence.

It’s unclear whether McClain will sign the agreement. Her attorney, Assistant Mecklenburg Public Defender Joel Adelman, did not respond to a Charlotte Observer email Wednesday seeking an interview about the case.

Melody Wetherbee, still grieving the loss of her daughter, told The Observer in a phone interview Tuesday that she is “shocked” that a crime of such recklessness and irresponsibility on McClain’s part can steal a life and still lead to such a minimal punishment.

Wetherbee, who lives in Concord, said she intends to represent her daughter by working to overhaul the state’s law on involuntary manslaughter so other families do not go through what she and her family have experienced over the past two years.

“I really want to honor Morgan by helping others,” she said. “There’s no way a year or two years of having to report to a parole officer measures up to losing a precious life, of taking someone who had the ability to see the world in a different way, with an artistic view.”

That all comes later. First, Wetherbee wants to have a word with the judge.

No forgiveness

The Thursday docket for Courtroom 5310 in the Mecklenburg County Courthouse includes procedural updates for 43 homicide defendants. Almost every case arose from the violent death of someone’s father, mother or child.

Where murder convictions can carry even minimum sentences spanning decades in prison, vehicular homicide cases, such as McClain’s, generally feature punishments measured in years or months or even probation.

McClain has one of 12 plea slots scheduled Thursday. Each is expected to follow the same script.

First, if the defendant pleads guilty, the terms of the plea agreement are read aloud by the judge. The prosecutor then reads a detailed account of the crime.

Afterward and under N.C. law, a member of the victim’s family is allowed to come to the front aisle of the courtroom to address the judge.

If Melody Wetherbee, who has two living children, is given the chance to speak, here’s what she wants Trosch to know:

That Morgan was a truth-teller who spoke honestly but never to wound.

That she worked three jobs to raise money for her Toyota, and still found a way to buy her mother the cello Melody could never afford herself.

That she always took a second or third look at someone’s behavior before deciding if she had found a new friend.

That a Facebook page Morgan’s aunt created after the crash to call for prayers to aid the teen’s recovery drew thousands of posts from around the world, and that Melody would have been surprised by all the interest.

That Morgan cared far more about living up to her personal standards rather than being popular.

That she was “a beautiful spirit, a beautiful soul, a beautiful mind and body,” and that “She was taken too early.”

In most plea hearings, the defendants normally stand with their attorneys inside the railing, separated from the speaking family member by one or more armed and uniformed bailiffs.

The judge routinely gives each defendant a chance to speak. Some apologize, some do not.

Wetherbee says she’s been told she can address only the judge and not McClain.

“Even if I could I don’t know what difference it would make in her life. They would almost seem like wasted words,” Wetherbee says.

“I’ve always had the thought that mistakes will happen ... and that forgiveness is such an important piece of life, that we have to forgive to find peace.”

Wetherbee says she might have found the means to forgive McClain had she displayed “one bit of remorse or ownership for what she has done.”

Instead, according to Wetherbee, “her behavior has been revealed over time.

“And that is not something I can forgive.”

Correction: A version of this story said the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office offered Breeana McClain a plea agreement to avoid the time and expense of a trial.

Bill Bunting, the DA’s homicide team supervisor, says that is incorrect. He says decisions on offering a plea bargain vs. taking a case to trial are based solely on the strength of the evidence and the likely result and sentence at trial.