September 1, 2025 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Laura Treppendahl was only beginning her adult life when it ended in a drunk driving crash. Her family’s grief was immediate and overwhelming, but so was their conviction about how to respond. When the young man responsible for the accident faced sentencing, the Treppendahls stood before the judge and said something that left the courtroom stunned: they forgave him. Laura’s parents share their remarkable story of faith.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, the
beautiful legacy of Laura Treppendall, a young lady whose life
was cut tragically short, and the resulting story of grace
and forgiveness offered by her family. Here's Madison, the.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Best way to find out who a person truly is
is to hear it straight from their family. Let's hear
from David and Rob, the father and brother of Laura Treppendall.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Laura was definitely the first child. She kind of dominated
the other children, right Rob.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
She was a little BOSSI, you know, she played her role
well of being the oldest child, and she followed the rules.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
And she definitely made sure that we follow the rules.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yeah. Summer, Laura went up to visit with her grandmother,
my mother, Geene Mama, And after several days together, my
mother got frustrated with Laura and she sat her down
to teach her a lesson, and she says, Laura, you
have a very bad habit for a child, and that
(01:20):
is you correct people. And particularly what's bothersome is that
you correct adults. You should never correct adults. And Laura
looked at her serious as she could be, and she says, gee, Mama,
it's adults, not adults. My mother just fell out laughing.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
She just left her alone after that, classic oldest child.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, Catherine was born seventeen months later, and then three
years later you came. Three years later, Sophie came. And
Laura was just the coolest, the delightful, interesting, funny child.
She had this ability to just be completely press up
with people, so that when she was talking to you,
(02:12):
nobody else mattered.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
She made you feel important.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
It kind of created a problem with guys because.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
They would all think she was in love with them.
She would do this.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Thing where she would hold your hand with both of hers.
It was just all in, deeply into your eyes. It's like,
how do you resist that?
Speaker 5 (02:29):
She actually was just a really good friend, right.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Laura was the first of her siblings to move out
for college. One night, she was hanging out with friends
in her new town of Oxford, Mississippi. That same night,
another student was with friends. They were drinking at a bar.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
It was a Thursday night, February sixth She was hanging
out with friends, having some community. It was very close
to the bar, it was like a few hundred yards
and then she headed home sometime around eleven.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
You know, they closed the bar. They were in there
just playing these kids as much alcohol as they could,
and they said, okay, everybody out. They sent everybody out.
Greg Gibbs was underage. Most of the guys that were
Greg and eight friends. Here they are at a bar.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
They're nineteen years old.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Lighten twenty years old. They're underage. And Greg says, he says, hey,
I'm too drunk to drive. Can anybody else drive? And
they all said, we're too drunk to drifted. Nobody volunteered
to be the days driver, and so so Greg says, okay,
(03:37):
it's not very far. Let's let's go. We get to
call it eleven thirty or so at night from Dallas,
who was Laura's boyfriend, that was almost her fiance. He
was a paramedic, and so Dallas said, Laura has been
(04:02):
in a terrible wreck and she's been taken to the
Baptist hospital and I'll tell you whatever I know when
I find it out. And so so we go through
an hour and a half of this incredible agony, and
(04:26):
then we get the next phone call and it's Dallas
and then he hands it to the doctor and the
doctor says she's gone. Within thirty minutes after that phone call.
My first cousin, Wellyn and his wife and the episcopal minister,
(04:50):
we're knocking on our door. They just, you know, they
just showed up. There's something to be said for just
showing up.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Although Laura attended college in Mississippi, her funeral was held
in her home state of Louisiana.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Oxford is what from Baton Ridge, five hours or so,
five hours on the money. We had like one hundred
and fifty kids come from Oxford for a funeral. I'm
gonna remember if it was fourteen or fifteen different girls
that came up to me and kind of put their
arms around me and said, Laura was my best friend.
(05:32):
She had fifteen girls that considered Laura to be their
best friend. How do you do that? I'll tell you
what the funeral was something else. It was at First
Presbyterian Church, and this church will see about twelve hundred people,
(05:53):
over two thousand people that came to that funeral. Three
people spoke and Phyllis's one and Phyllis was one of
her teachers of back Ridge, so doing that service. When
we started it, it was really overcast and it was
really dreary and right when Phyllis started her ser talking
(06:13):
about Laura, the sun came through the windows and it
just lit up the whole thing. It was sort of striking.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
How that happened, and everybody showed up, and the letters
that we got for days and months and years after
she died, of people who are affected by her, they're
still coming in.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
It's a fair powerful thing.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
One of the letters came from James, the paramedic on
duty the night of Laura's wreck. Years later, he felt
the urge to contact David to tell him about the
last moments he was able to spend with Laura and
the regrets he had. Here's James to read the letter.
Speaker 6 (06:54):
Hello David, this is hard for me. My name is
James Pritchard. I'm a retired cap at the Oxford Fire Department.
On February seventh, two thousand and three, I had the
privilege to sit in the car with Lord and say
a prayer and make a promise to her that everything
was going to be okay. I will never forgive myself
(07:15):
of telling her that lie, and I will also never
forget the look of comfort she had on her beautiful
face as I prayed and told her that we were
going to be finished in just one minute. I know,
just from the moment she and I shared, she is
with our Lord and she is much happy and healthier
(07:35):
than anybody on this earth. I'm so sorry if I'm
bringing up hurtful thoughts and memories. I just can't go
any longer without trying to let you know that I
truly try my best to save your beautiful little girl.
Since that night, I've either thought about or seen Laura
every time I laid my head down, but I thought
(07:56):
it would either upset you or seem selfish to come
text you. The past few years, my career has caught
up with me, both mentally and physically, and I just
wanted to ask you for your forgiveness for not keeping
my promise to Laura. I'm in no way asking for pity.
I just need to find peace on mouth through this tragedy.
(08:19):
After that night, I would pray with the people that
I was trying to help, but I would never again
promise anyone that was going to make things okay, whether
they would be okay. I'm so sorry I couldn't do more,
and I pray that you and your family have found peace,
and I hope to find your forgiveness and I thank
(08:40):
you for your time.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Today, James has come to terms with some of the
regrets of his career, and the trumpend Dolls have reassured
him that he didn't lie and that Laura really is okay.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Two words you never want to hear as a parent.
She's gone. In my goodness the letter we just heard.
These are the stories we love to bring you, and
you're just at the beginning. The remarkable and regrettably short life.
The beautiful life of Laura Treppendaal and her families continues
(09:22):
here on our American Stories. And we're back with our
(10:11):
American Stories and the story of Laura Treppendall. You're about
to hear from another of the many people who were
impacted by her life. Lets Newsome was the minister of RUF,
the university fellowship group at Laura's college here in our
small town of Oxford, Mississippi, about an hour south of Memphis.
Speaker 7 (10:38):
Laura tended to create the very community that she was seeking,
but she kind of found a home in her friendships
in RUF.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
The thing about.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
Laura that was the most compelling to me was Laura
was not unaware of the realities of life.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
In the day surrounding her death.
Speaker 7 (10:56):
I do think that there was a tendency from the
community around us to turn her into sort of Saint
Laura Dreppindol, which is perfectly natural because she was so delightful.
But Laura, I always thought, would be so uncomfortable with it,
because she knew her own struggles. She knew that she
was a flawed person, struggles that she was willing to admit,
and I always wanted that to at least be always
said that what brought the richness of her character was
(11:18):
not a natural born sunny disposition. That's what made her
so delightful to be around. So yeah, we instantly connected,
and she was involved in lots of our small groups
and a lot of just great connections people. As a
matter of fact, we were having our UF in the
springtime on Thursday nights in two thousand and three, on
the evening of her passing, she had left our UF
to attend a group of girls that were having discussion time.
(11:41):
They would after OURF go to someone's house. They would
play a board game together and just talk and share
a lot of rich fellowship together. That was vital for
Laura and central to who she was, and the fact
that it was what she was involved in in the
night of her death always meant a lot to me,
and thinking about it, I'd actually gone to my own
small group myself. Right around you know, eleven thirty or midnight,
we began to hear sirens from the house that I
(12:01):
was at. She was on her way home from that
gathering with those girls to her home to work on
the paper. She actually told them, I've got to leave
early because I've got to go work on the paper.
I left my gathering probably around midnight, went home, and
at that moment got a call from her boyfriend Dallas, saying,
Laura's in the hospital.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
She's been struck by a car.
Speaker 7 (12:20):
We don't know if she's going to make it. So
I made it to the hospital at around twelve thirty
maybe one o'clock in the morning, and they were already
probably fifty college students gathered in the lobby of Baptist
Hospital there, and somewhere around one thirty or so, dean
of students came out and announced that Laura had passed.
I was immediately taken back to meet with Dallas. We
left the hospital together and about two am to about
(12:42):
five am All of Dallas's friends just descended on his
home in the middle of the nights. I knew their
friend was hurting, and you could start to see the
beginning formation of a community that would rally around a
great tragedy but produces this amazing fruit of bomb undid
connected relationships that exist to this day, texting each other
(13:04):
on that February evening, and I think that David would
definitely say that Dallas became a part of their family.
As a matter of fact, when Dallas got married many
many years later, they were at the wedding celebrating along
with Dallas and his new wife, Christy. So it's just
amazing to see how God sort of worked through Laura's life.
She was infectious with grace and it continued to manifest
itself even after her death. In the days after her death,
(13:28):
they were compiling photographs and someone had taken a picture
of Laura in a field, just typical Laura. They had
arrived to this field because she just thought it was beautiful,
and she thought, you know what, that's a field that
we just need to run across. So they had pulled
the car over and pulled their camera and snapped a
quick photo as Laura is starting to run up into
(13:49):
the field, so it's the pictures of this large field
and she's on the right of the photograph running up
the hill. And after she passed, that photo became the
one that everybody sort of clung to because everybody kept
looking at saying, you know, it just looks like she's
going somewhere, and we knew exactly where she was going.
Was very inspirational, so much so that there were a
(14:10):
couple of ladies that actually did paintings of that photograph
that I keptcause they always reminded me of Lara's homegoing.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
The day after Laura's passing, Les and Laura's boyfriend Dallas,
rode together to Saint Francisville, Louisiana, where her parents, David
and Coco, were having a wake at their home.
Speaker 7 (14:29):
Before we left for Saint Francisville, Dallas and I went
to her house. As soon as I walked into her room,
there's that immediate heartbreak of seeing a place that used
to be occupied and isn't anymore, and it just it
all looks wrong and unnerving. But I immediately also noticed that
she had painted all over the walls, and the first
thing I saw on the left hand side. I can
still put myself there on the top of the clauset
(14:52):
was whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say,
it is well with my soul. It was the first
thing I saw when I went into her bedroom. It
was just it was Laura's identity, so much so that
she couldn't even live in a room without being plastered
on the walls. And I actually got to preach on
that very passage at her funeral some days later, which
was a big honor for me. It was one of
(15:13):
those evenings where you're up into the night trying to
put together whatever I was going to do, and what
in the world do you say in the midst of
this kind of tragedy. But it was her guidance that
got me through that, because she was the one who
had provided the scripture, passage and the theme of her life,
and she's got a chance to stand up and tell
people that it was well with Laura's soul, and there's
a lot of joy in that.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
LUs remembers being there with the treppend dolls at the
sentencing for Greg the young man who struck Laura.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Again.
Speaker 7 (15:41):
I can place myself in that courtroom. I do think
Greg came in within a tendent amount of fear and anxiety,
but people began to stand up and read letters, and
the judge even talked about how many letters they had received,
and he ended by saying, and I was most astounded
by the leave that I received from the young lady's parents,
(16:02):
saying that they had forgiven Greg completely and did not
hold any grudges against him.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Here's David to read the letter that his family wrote
to the judge on October the twenty first, two thousand
and three, about a week before Greg's sentencing.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Your honor, we appreciate the opportunity to convey our sentiments
to you regarding the sentencing of Greg Gibbs. We are Christians.
Forgiveness is an integral part of our Christian faith. We
have asked Christ and He has enabled us to fully
forgive Greg Gibbs and the other young men involved in
this tragedy. Therefore, from our own personal perspective, we have
(16:44):
no need, nor will we gain any satisfaction from seeing
Greg Gibbs further punished. We recognize, however, that much more
is involved here their own personal well being. A felony
has been committed the life of a beautiful, innocent young
woman has been lost in this state. Through the office
of your Court, is responsible for taking the wisest possible
(17:06):
action to minimize the chances of similar tragedies reoccurring. You
have been entrusted with an awesome responsibility. We pray that
God will guide you and give you his wisdom as
you decide the appropriate sentence for Greg Gibbs. Sincerely, Yours,
the treppend Dolls.
Speaker 7 (17:27):
There's not a whole lot of experiences that I've had
that come really very close to the impact that that
experience had on me. Dallas actually grabbed me by the
hand and said, they want me to come back and
meet with Greg. Would you come with me? So the
three of us went back with all the lawyers in
the room, and I can see this to this day.
Greg came and sat down ashen, just gray face, terrified
(17:50):
at what he was about to hear. And Dallas reached
across the table and grabbed Greg's hands and he said,
there is zero animosity that if towards you. So if
there's any fear in your mind that you might feel
that is gone, it's not in me. And it's only
because the grace of Christ. So when the judge came
in and announced that they had forgiven on me, it
was a powerful moment. The whole room was in tears.
(18:13):
There was such a well spring of undeserved favor, and
it was beautiful, and I think marked one of the
reasons why Greg went on and did well afterwards. Laura
would have had it any other way.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And what a remarkable piece of storytelling. Laura was infectious
with grace. I keep picturing her stopping with some friends,
seeing that field and then that picture. I see it
in my head. I see her in my head, and
I know you do too. You want to talk about
infectious grace showing up pre sentencing from a family that
(18:51):
could teach all of us a whole lot, how to
let go, how to forgive, how to live with grace
and mercy. Christian or not this is the answer. And
noticed the careful calibration of that beautiful letter. If only
we could all I'll write a letter like that after
losing a loved one when.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
We come back.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Well, one of the most beautiful stories already. And it's
not over that we've told here on this show. The
story continues here.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
On our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
And we returned to our American stories and to Laura
Treppendall's story. Here's Madison to take it home.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Many people wonder how the treppend Dolls chose to forgive
the driver who hit Laura.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
It was no effort to do that. We just weren't
angry at Greg Gibbs. We were sad, but it's like
I felt so sorry for him because of what this
had done to his life. I mean, he recognized that
(20:17):
he had a problem, and so we couldn't have ginned
up anger if we'd have tried.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
We were sad we missed Laura.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Right before the trial, we met with Greg and his
parents and his attorney. The person who was must affected
was the attorney. He started weeping. He says, this doesn't happen.
It's like this just doesn't nobody's ever feels I said, look,
we're not mad at Greg. Anybody who carries around this
(20:51):
bitterness is just stupid.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
It'll put an attorney out of a job. You're used
to the anger.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
There's nothing to be gay by carrying around bitterness and vengeance, right,
it just eats your guts out.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
And knowing that the perpetrator for Laura's death is suffering
does not benefit our family in any way.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah, we didn't want to lose two people, right.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
The idea of Greg sitting in jail for a long
time would actually make us less happy. The level of
guilt and regret that we knew Greg was facing was enough.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
We wanted to move on. We all wanted to heal
from it, and wanted him to heal from it.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
When you go through a bit of trauma, you can
either isolate or you can draw near to those that
you're with, and we drew near.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
So what we did. One of Laura's favorite restaurants was
Old Tail Grocery.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
It was like two months later.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
We said, we're gonna have a celebration of Lara's life
and we're gonna invite some friends to come and tell
Laura stories. And the deal is, no said stories. It
all has to be funny.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Often you have a funeral and it's very sad and
then that's it.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
But this was an unconventional way of doing things.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
So the risk would I hold like two hundred and
twenty people, And so we said, well, we went the
whole thing out, but my gosh, we're not going to
put two hundred and twenty people. It ended up who's
in and who's.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Out the standing room only one in, one out.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
And then it was like everybody wanted to come. And
we invited the guys who were in the time and
five of them king, and I gotta say, in the
whole process that was the most cathartic experience of AWE.
There were so many people a king and told crazy Laura.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Stories, things that we'd never heard.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I mean, stuff about painting her fingernails green, and doings
through Walmart and shopping carts for them, pushing it through.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
I mean, I was gonna sounds like it was really good.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
And I think something that our family did was we
grieved well.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
We embraced Laura.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
We didn't put our pictures away, and we didn't try
to forget.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
We wanted like all of it. We wanted to hear
every story.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
And while those stories are kind of sometimes painful to hear,
it's part of the grieving process.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
I probably released more tears over that two hour period
than any other period, and they were joyful tears. So
people would get up and tell a story. It was
really fun. I would laugh till I cried, and I
would cry and I would cry. It was just it
(23:50):
was such a relief.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Laura journaled extensively throughout her life, from the time she
was fourteen years old.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
We have all of our journal What was so phenomenal
is to watch her in her journals spiritually mature, where
at some point she's got all these worries and concerns
and things like this, but by this time, I mean,
she's not worried about anything. It's almost like she knew
(24:19):
she was.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
It's like she knew it's a scary thing of thinking
about living forever. And that was something she wrestled with
for a while, and in the last few months of
her life she achieved a tremnis not on a piece
in that category.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
One day, Laura was riding in the car with her mother, Cocoa.
They were on their way to her college tour.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
About halfway along the drive, Laura just burst out crying,
just uncontrollable sobbing, and Coco pulls over inside of the
room says, Laura.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
What are you crying about? And she says, I think
heaven is going to be boring. I love life so
much the way it is.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
I can't imagine that life after death is going to
be better than this. I don't want to be born.
I don't want to be up there with the angels
and the clouds and the harps of this kind of stuff.
She really thought about those types of thing and so
in her last few months she had a different perspective
(25:22):
and she was ready to go.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
She was ready.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I mean, if you just read what she wrote, it
just talks about how there really is happily ever after
and everything does kind of like an everything does work
out no matter what.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
And so she wrote this in her journal which last journalist,
which was about a week before she died.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
One of my best friends about fifteen years ago, looked
at me and he says, David, I want what you have.
I just don't want to pay the price you paid
to have it. Having gone through this experience, there were
huge silver linings. Rob and his two sisters weren't particularly
close before. They're soulmates. They're best friends.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Our whole family drew near and that nearness has never left.
It's been eighteen years. We needed each other and that
has not changed since February seventh.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
For me, I always had these night fears as a kid.
I was very afraid that someone was coming into the house.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Is feared that someone was gonna come and kill me
or my family.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
I don't know. I had this level of anxiety at
night as a kid.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
So sorry, So he got his little sister sleep in
his room so they would get her no Jo before.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
No Joe put her by the window. So, but Sophie
issue my sacrificial lamb. I'm seven, I'm eight years old,
when she's three years younger, and I'm like, well, they'll
get her first. If Sophie's not in the room. I'm
sleeping on the floor in my parents' room, my sister's rooms.
And I went to counseling for this. It carried with me,
this is embarrassing all the way into high school. I
had this fear, this anxiety, something was coming. And it
(26:53):
ended the night Laura died. After that, I slept in peace,
and I never thought about it at all. It was
and overnight. What I realized later as I kind of
put the pieces together, was what I feared the most.
Something terrible happened to my family, happened, and I was okay.
The way that this experience affected us in the long
term was a life filled with more meaning, more purpose,
(27:17):
and way less fear.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
You need these things to make you who you're gonna be.
Don't waste them when they come, because they're gonna come.
If you let them and bitter you, you have missed
the opportunity that they offer to you, which is to
grow up and.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
To trust and to come out of them to be
a person who doesn't have fear anymore. Being freed from
fear is the biggest gift that you can receive from
a challenge like this.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
You don't get through this thing carrying a bunch of
anger and vengeance and bitterness.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
It'll never leave you.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
I mean, you want to get through life, you want
to have quality of life. Don't carry all this bitterness stuff.
So we didn't do anything herculean or wonderful.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
It was just this universal thing where we felt sorry
for Greg. We felt bad for Greg, and.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
We later helped with him getting your pardon.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
It's like, we don't want to continue the cycle of pain.
Let's do what little bit that we can to not
add more pain to the situation.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
We'll go through something like this and then you look
at your children or soulmates and yield your way for clothes.
I mean, the little stuff just doesn't bother It's it's
irrelevant I go did this. It's a ticket out of
the rat race if you allow it to be.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
And a special thanks to the Treppendall family for telling
this story, this beautiful story, and to less Newsome and
to Madison for putting the piece together. Madison herself is
a product of all miss and lives here in Oxford.
It took no effort at all. The dad said about
how they managed to forgive Greg. We couldn't have ginned
(29:17):
up anger if we tried. We were sad we missed Laura,
which is not mad at Greg. And when he talked
about that party he threw, and he invited the five
guys in the tahoe that took her life. And then
as he said, I shed more tears during that dinner,
joyful tears than I had in the entire time before.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
And that it was such a relief.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Moreover, what the son said, that we had to grieve,
and we grieved well. The story of Laura Treppendahl and
her family a story of grace, forgiveness and love. Here
on our American stories
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Looking
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, the
beautiful legacy of Laura Treppendall, a young lady whose life
was cut tragically short, and the resulting story of grace
and forgiveness offered by her family. Here's Madison, the.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Best way to find out who a person truly is
is to hear it straight from their family. Let's hear
from David and Rob, the father and brother of Laura Treppendall.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Laura was definitely the first child. She kind of dominated
the other children, right Rob.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
She was a little BOSSI, you know, she played her role
well of being the oldest child, and she followed the rules.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
And she definitely made sure that we follow the rules.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yeah. Summer, Laura went up to visit with her grandmother,
my mother, Geene Mama, And after several days together, my
mother got frustrated with Laura and she sat her down
to teach her a lesson, and she says, Laura, you
have a very bad habit for a child, and that
(01:20):
is you correct people. And particularly what's bothersome is that
you correct adults. You should never correct adults. And Laura
looked at her serious as she could be, and she says, gee, Mama,
it's adults, not adults. My mother just fell out laughing.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
She just left her alone after that, classic oldest child.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, Catherine was born seventeen months later, and then three
years later you came. Three years later, Sophie came. And
Laura was just the coolest, the delightful, interesting, funny child.
She had this ability to just be completely press up
with people, so that when she was talking to you,
(02:12):
nobody else mattered.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
She made you feel important.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
It kind of created a problem with guys because.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
They would all think she was in love with them.
She would do this.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Thing where she would hold your hand with both of hers.
It was just all in, deeply into your eyes. It's like,
how do you resist that?
Speaker 5 (02:29):
She actually was just a really good friend, right.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Laura was the first of her siblings to move out
for college. One night, she was hanging out with friends
in her new town of Oxford, Mississippi. That same night,
another student was with friends. They were drinking at a bar.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
It was a Thursday night, February sixth She was hanging
out with friends, having some community. It was very close
to the bar, it was like a few hundred yards
and then she headed home sometime around eleven.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
You know, they closed the bar. They were in there
just playing these kids as much alcohol as they could,
and they said, okay, everybody out. They sent everybody out.
Greg Gibbs was underage. Most of the guys that were
Greg and eight friends. Here they are at a bar.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
They're nineteen years old.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Lighten twenty years old. They're underage. And Greg says, he says, hey,
I'm too drunk to drive. Can anybody else drive? And
they all said, we're too drunk to drifted. Nobody volunteered
to be the days driver, and so so Greg says, okay,
(03:37):
it's not very far. Let's let's go. We get to
call it eleven thirty or so at night from Dallas,
who was Laura's boyfriend, that was almost her fiance. He
was a paramedic, and so Dallas said, Laura has been
(04:02):
in a terrible wreck and she's been taken to the
Baptist hospital and I'll tell you whatever I know when
I find it out. And so so we go through
an hour and a half of this incredible agony, and
(04:26):
then we get the next phone call and it's Dallas
and then he hands it to the doctor and the
doctor says she's gone. Within thirty minutes after that phone call.
My first cousin, Wellyn and his wife and the episcopal minister,
(04:50):
we're knocking on our door. They just, you know, they
just showed up. There's something to be said for just
showing up.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Although Laura attended college in Mississippi, her funeral was held
in her home state of Louisiana.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Oxford is what from Baton Ridge, five hours or so,
five hours on the money. We had like one hundred
and fifty kids come from Oxford for a funeral. I'm
gonna remember if it was fourteen or fifteen different girls
that came up to me and kind of put their
arms around me and said, Laura was my best friend.
(05:32):
She had fifteen girls that considered Laura to be their
best friend. How do you do that? I'll tell you
what the funeral was something else. It was at First
Presbyterian Church, and this church will see about twelve hundred people,
(05:53):
over two thousand people that came to that funeral. Three
people spoke and Phyllis's one and Phyllis was one of
her teachers of back Ridge, so doing that service. When
we started it, it was really overcast and it was
really dreary and right when Phyllis started her ser talking
(06:13):
about Laura, the sun came through the windows and it
just lit up the whole thing. It was sort of striking.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
How that happened, and everybody showed up, and the letters
that we got for days and months and years after
she died, of people who are affected by her, they're
still coming in.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
It's a fair powerful thing.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
One of the letters came from James, the paramedic on
duty the night of Laura's wreck. Years later, he felt
the urge to contact David to tell him about the
last moments he was able to spend with Laura and
the regrets he had. Here's James to read the letter.
Speaker 6 (06:54):
Hello David, this is hard for me. My name is
James Pritchard. I'm a retired cap at the Oxford Fire Department.
On February seventh, two thousand and three, I had the
privilege to sit in the car with Lord and say
a prayer and make a promise to her that everything
was going to be okay. I will never forgive myself
(07:15):
of telling her that lie, and I will also never
forget the look of comfort she had on her beautiful
face as I prayed and told her that we were
going to be finished in just one minute. I know,
just from the moment she and I shared, she is
with our Lord and she is much happy and healthier
(07:35):
than anybody on this earth. I'm so sorry if I'm
bringing up hurtful thoughts and memories. I just can't go
any longer without trying to let you know that I
truly try my best to save your beautiful little girl.
Since that night, I've either thought about or seen Laura
every time I laid my head down, but I thought
(07:56):
it would either upset you or seem selfish to come
text you. The past few years, my career has caught
up with me, both mentally and physically, and I just
wanted to ask you for your forgiveness for not keeping
my promise to Laura. I'm in no way asking for pity.
I just need to find peace on mouth through this tragedy.
(08:19):
After that night, I would pray with the people that
I was trying to help, but I would never again
promise anyone that was going to make things okay, whether
they would be okay. I'm so sorry I couldn't do more,
and I pray that you and your family have found peace,
and I hope to find your forgiveness and I thank
(08:40):
you for your time.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Today, James has come to terms with some of the
regrets of his career, and the trumpend Dolls have reassured
him that he didn't lie and that Laura really is okay.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Two words you never want to hear as a parent.
She's gone. In my goodness the letter we just heard.
These are the stories we love to bring you, and
you're just at the beginning. The remarkable and regrettably short life.
The beautiful life of Laura Treppendaal and her families continues
(09:22):
here on our American Stories. And we're back with our
(10:11):
American Stories and the story of Laura Treppendall. You're about
to hear from another of the many people who were
impacted by her life. Lets Newsome was the minister of RUF,
the university fellowship group at Laura's college here in our
small town of Oxford, Mississippi, about an hour south of Memphis.
Speaker 7 (10:38):
Laura tended to create the very community that she was seeking,
but she kind of found a home in her friendships
in RUF.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
The thing about.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
Laura that was the most compelling to me was Laura
was not unaware of the realities of life.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
In the day surrounding her death.
Speaker 7 (10:56):
I do think that there was a tendency from the
community around us to turn her into sort of Saint
Laura Dreppindol, which is perfectly natural because she was so delightful.
But Laura, I always thought, would be so uncomfortable with it,
because she knew her own struggles. She knew that she
was a flawed person, struggles that she was willing to admit,
and I always wanted that to at least be always
said that what brought the richness of her character was
(11:18):
not a natural born sunny disposition. That's what made her
so delightful to be around. So yeah, we instantly connected,
and she was involved in lots of our small groups
and a lot of just great connections people. As a
matter of fact, we were having our UF in the
springtime on Thursday nights in two thousand and three, on
the evening of her passing, she had left our UF
to attend a group of girls that were having discussion time.
(11:41):
They would after OURF go to someone's house. They would
play a board game together and just talk and share
a lot of rich fellowship together. That was vital for
Laura and central to who she was, and the fact
that it was what she was involved in in the
night of her death always meant a lot to me,
and thinking about it, I'd actually gone to my own
small group myself. Right around you know, eleven thirty or midnight,
we began to hear sirens from the house that I
(12:01):
was at. She was on her way home from that
gathering with those girls to her home to work on
the paper. She actually told them, I've got to leave
early because I've got to go work on the paper.
I left my gathering probably around midnight, went home, and
at that moment got a call from her boyfriend Dallas, saying,
Laura's in the hospital.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
She's been struck by a car.
Speaker 7 (12:20):
We don't know if she's going to make it. So
I made it to the hospital at around twelve thirty
maybe one o'clock in the morning, and they were already
probably fifty college students gathered in the lobby of Baptist
Hospital there, and somewhere around one thirty or so, dean
of students came out and announced that Laura had passed.
I was immediately taken back to meet with Dallas. We
left the hospital together and about two am to about
(12:42):
five am All of Dallas's friends just descended on his
home in the middle of the nights. I knew their
friend was hurting, and you could start to see the
beginning formation of a community that would rally around a
great tragedy but produces this amazing fruit of bomb undid
connected relationships that exist to this day, texting each other
(13:04):
on that February evening, and I think that David would
definitely say that Dallas became a part of their family.
As a matter of fact, when Dallas got married many
many years later, they were at the wedding celebrating along
with Dallas and his new wife, Christy. So it's just
amazing to see how God sort of worked through Laura's life.
She was infectious with grace and it continued to manifest
itself even after her death. In the days after her death,
(13:28):
they were compiling photographs and someone had taken a picture
of Laura in a field, just typical Laura. They had
arrived to this field because she just thought it was beautiful,
and she thought, you know what, that's a field that
we just need to run across. So they had pulled
the car over and pulled their camera and snapped a
quick photo as Laura is starting to run up into
(13:49):
the field, so it's the pictures of this large field
and she's on the right of the photograph running up
the hill. And after she passed, that photo became the
one that everybody sort of clung to because everybody kept
looking at saying, you know, it just looks like she's
going somewhere, and we knew exactly where she was going.
Was very inspirational, so much so that there were a
(14:10):
couple of ladies that actually did paintings of that photograph
that I keptcause they always reminded me of Lara's homegoing.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
The day after Laura's passing, Les and Laura's boyfriend Dallas,
rode together to Saint Francisville, Louisiana, where her parents, David
and Coco, were having a wake at their home.
Speaker 7 (14:29):
Before we left for Saint Francisville, Dallas and I went
to her house. As soon as I walked into her room,
there's that immediate heartbreak of seeing a place that used
to be occupied and isn't anymore, and it just it
all looks wrong and unnerving. But I immediately also noticed that
she had painted all over the walls, and the first
thing I saw on the left hand side. I can
still put myself there on the top of the clauset
(14:52):
was whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say,
it is well with my soul. It was the first
thing I saw when I went into her bedroom. It
was just it was Laura's identity, so much so that
she couldn't even live in a room without being plastered
on the walls. And I actually got to preach on
that very passage at her funeral some days later, which
was a big honor for me. It was one of
(15:13):
those evenings where you're up into the night trying to
put together whatever I was going to do, and what
in the world do you say in the midst of
this kind of tragedy. But it was her guidance that
got me through that, because she was the one who
had provided the scripture, passage and the theme of her life,
and she's got a chance to stand up and tell
people that it was well with Laura's soul, and there's
a lot of joy in that.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
LUs remembers being there with the treppend dolls at the
sentencing for Greg the young man who struck Laura.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Again.
Speaker 7 (15:41):
I can place myself in that courtroom. I do think
Greg came in within a tendent amount of fear and anxiety,
but people began to stand up and read letters, and
the judge even talked about how many letters they had received,
and he ended by saying, and I was most astounded
by the leave that I received from the young lady's parents,
(16:02):
saying that they had forgiven Greg completely and did not
hold any grudges against him.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Here's David to read the letter that his family wrote
to the judge on October the twenty first, two thousand
and three, about a week before Greg's sentencing.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Your honor, we appreciate the opportunity to convey our sentiments
to you regarding the sentencing of Greg Gibbs. We are Christians.
Forgiveness is an integral part of our Christian faith. We
have asked Christ and He has enabled us to fully
forgive Greg Gibbs and the other young men involved in
this tragedy. Therefore, from our own personal perspective, we have
(16:44):
no need, nor will we gain any satisfaction from seeing
Greg Gibbs further punished. We recognize, however, that much more
is involved here their own personal well being. A felony
has been committed the life of a beautiful, innocent young
woman has been lost in this state. Through the office
of your Court, is responsible for taking the wisest possible
(17:06):
action to minimize the chances of similar tragedies reoccurring. You
have been entrusted with an awesome responsibility. We pray that
God will guide you and give you his wisdom as
you decide the appropriate sentence for Greg Gibbs. Sincerely, Yours,
the treppend Dolls.
Speaker 7 (17:27):
There's not a whole lot of experiences that I've had
that come really very close to the impact that that
experience had on me. Dallas actually grabbed me by the
hand and said, they want me to come back and
meet with Greg. Would you come with me? So the
three of us went back with all the lawyers in
the room, and I can see this to this day.
Greg came and sat down ashen, just gray face, terrified
(17:50):
at what he was about to hear. And Dallas reached
across the table and grabbed Greg's hands and he said,
there is zero animosity that if towards you. So if
there's any fear in your mind that you might feel
that is gone, it's not in me. And it's only
because the grace of Christ. So when the judge came
in and announced that they had forgiven on me, it
was a powerful moment. The whole room was in tears.
(18:13):
There was such a well spring of undeserved favor, and
it was beautiful, and I think marked one of the
reasons why Greg went on and did well afterwards. Laura
would have had it any other way.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
And what a remarkable piece of storytelling. Laura was infectious
with grace. I keep picturing her stopping with some friends,
seeing that field and then that picture. I see it
in my head. I see her in my head, and
I know you do too. You want to talk about
infectious grace showing up pre sentencing from a family that
(18:51):
could teach all of us a whole lot, how to
let go, how to forgive, how to live with grace
and mercy. Christian or not this is the answer. And
noticed the careful calibration of that beautiful letter. If only
we could all I'll write a letter like that after
losing a loved one when.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
We come back.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Well, one of the most beautiful stories already. And it's
not over that we've told here on this show. The
story continues here.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
On our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
And we returned to our American stories and to Laura
Treppendall's story. Here's Madison to take it home.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Many people wonder how the treppend Dolls chose to forgive
the driver who hit Laura.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
It was no effort to do that. We just weren't
angry at Greg Gibbs. We were sad, but it's like
I felt so sorry for him because of what this
had done to his life. I mean, he recognized that
(20:17):
he had a problem, and so we couldn't have ginned
up anger if we'd have tried.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
We were sad we missed Laura.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Right before the trial, we met with Greg and his
parents and his attorney. The person who was must affected
was the attorney. He started weeping. He says, this doesn't happen.
It's like this just doesn't nobody's ever feels I said, look,
we're not mad at Greg. Anybody who carries around this
(20:51):
bitterness is just stupid.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
It'll put an attorney out of a job. You're used
to the anger.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
There's nothing to be gay by carrying around bitterness and vengeance, right,
it just eats your guts out.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
And knowing that the perpetrator for Laura's death is suffering
does not benefit our family in any way.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah, we didn't want to lose two people, right.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
The idea of Greg sitting in jail for a long
time would actually make us less happy. The level of
guilt and regret that we knew Greg was facing was enough.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
We wanted to move on. We all wanted to heal
from it, and wanted him to heal from it.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
When you go through a bit of trauma, you can
either isolate or you can draw near to those that
you're with, and we drew near.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
So what we did. One of Laura's favorite restaurants was
Old Tail Grocery.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
It was like two months later.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
We said, we're gonna have a celebration of Lara's life
and we're gonna invite some friends to come and tell
Laura stories. And the deal is, no said stories. It
all has to be funny.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Often you have a funeral and it's very sad and
then that's it.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
But this was an unconventional way of doing things.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
So the risk would I hold like two hundred and
twenty people, And so we said, well, we went the
whole thing out, but my gosh, we're not going to
put two hundred and twenty people. It ended up who's
in and who's.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Out the standing room only one in, one out.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
And then it was like everybody wanted to come. And
we invited the guys who were in the time and
five of them king, and I gotta say, in the
whole process that was the most cathartic experience of AWE.
There were so many people a king and told crazy Laura.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Stories, things that we'd never heard.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I mean, stuff about painting her fingernails green, and doings
through Walmart and shopping carts for them, pushing it through.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
I mean, I was gonna sounds like it was really good.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
And I think something that our family did was we
grieved well.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
We embraced Laura.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
We didn't put our pictures away, and we didn't try
to forget.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
We wanted like all of it. We wanted to hear
every story.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
And while those stories are kind of sometimes painful to hear,
it's part of the grieving process.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
I probably released more tears over that two hour period
than any other period, and they were joyful tears. So
people would get up and tell a story. It was
really fun. I would laugh till I cried, and I
would cry and I would cry. It was just it
(23:50):
was such a relief.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Laura journaled extensively throughout her life, from the time she
was fourteen years old.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
We have all of our journal What was so phenomenal
is to watch her in her journals spiritually mature, where
at some point she's got all these worries and concerns
and things like this, but by this time, I mean,
she's not worried about anything. It's almost like she knew
(24:19):
she was.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
It's like she knew it's a scary thing of thinking
about living forever. And that was something she wrestled with
for a while, and in the last few months of
her life she achieved a tremnis not on a piece
in that category.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
One day, Laura was riding in the car with her mother, Cocoa.
They were on their way to her college tour.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
About halfway along the drive, Laura just burst out crying,
just uncontrollable sobbing, and Coco pulls over inside of the
room says, Laura.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
What are you crying about? And she says, I think
heaven is going to be boring. I love life so
much the way it is.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
I can't imagine that life after death is going to
be better than this. I don't want to be born.
I don't want to be up there with the angels
and the clouds and the harps of this kind of stuff.
She really thought about those types of thing and so
in her last few months she had a different perspective
(25:22):
and she was ready to go.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
She was ready.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I mean, if you just read what she wrote, it
just talks about how there really is happily ever after
and everything does kind of like an everything does work
out no matter what.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
And so she wrote this in her journal which last journalist,
which was about a week before she died.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
One of my best friends about fifteen years ago, looked
at me and he says, David, I want what you have.
I just don't want to pay the price you paid
to have it. Having gone through this experience, there were
huge silver linings. Rob and his two sisters weren't particularly
close before. They're soulmates. They're best friends.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Our whole family drew near and that nearness has never left.
It's been eighteen years. We needed each other and that
has not changed since February seventh.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
For me, I always had these night fears as a kid.
I was very afraid that someone was coming into the house.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Is feared that someone was gonna come and kill me
or my family.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
I don't know. I had this level of anxiety at
night as a kid.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
So sorry, So he got his little sister sleep in
his room so they would get her no Jo before.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
No Joe put her by the window. So, but Sophie
issue my sacrificial lamb. I'm seven, I'm eight years old,
when she's three years younger, and I'm like, well, they'll
get her first. If Sophie's not in the room. I'm
sleeping on the floor in my parents' room, my sister's rooms.
And I went to counseling for this. It carried with me,
this is embarrassing all the way into high school. I
had this fear, this anxiety, something was coming. And it
(26:53):
ended the night Laura died. After that, I slept in peace,
and I never thought about it at all. It was
and overnight. What I realized later as I kind of
put the pieces together, was what I feared the most.
Something terrible happened to my family, happened, and I was okay.
The way that this experience affected us in the long
term was a life filled with more meaning, more purpose,
(27:17):
and way less fear.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
You need these things to make you who you're gonna be.
Don't waste them when they come, because they're gonna come.
If you let them and bitter you, you have missed
the opportunity that they offer to you, which is to
grow up and.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
To trust and to come out of them to be
a person who doesn't have fear anymore. Being freed from
fear is the biggest gift that you can receive from
a challenge like this.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
You don't get through this thing carrying a bunch of
anger and vengeance and bitterness.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
It'll never leave you.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
I mean, you want to get through life, you want
to have quality of life. Don't carry all this bitterness stuff.
So we didn't do anything herculean or wonderful.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
It was just this universal thing where we felt sorry
for Greg. We felt bad for Greg, and.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
We later helped with him getting your pardon.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
It's like, we don't want to continue the cycle of pain.
Let's do what little bit that we can to not
add more pain to the situation.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
We'll go through something like this and then you look
at your children or soulmates and yield your way for clothes.
I mean, the little stuff just doesn't bother It's it's
irrelevant I go did this. It's a ticket out of
the rat race if you allow it to be.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
And a special thanks to the Treppendall family for telling
this story, this beautiful story, and to less Newsome and
to Madison for putting the piece together. Madison herself is
a product of all miss and lives here in Oxford.
It took no effort at all. The dad said about
how they managed to forgive Greg. We couldn't have ginned
(29:17):
up anger if we tried. We were sad we missed Laura,
which is not mad at Greg. And when he talked
about that party he threw, and he invited the five
guys in the tahoe that took her life. And then
as he said, I shed more tears during that dinner,
joyful tears than I had in the entire time before.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
And that it was such a relief.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Moreover, what the son said, that we had to grieve,
and we grieved well. The story of Laura Treppendahl and
her family a story of grace, forgiveness and love. Here
on our American stories
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Looking
Host
Lee Habeeb
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