Just weeks after his wedding, a California man who planned to grow old with his high school sweetheart is now planning her funeral.
Family members say on GoFundMe that 23-year-old Carlie Membrino was ki*lled by a drunken driver just 13 days after she married her high school sweetheart, Adam Whitlatch. The couple were looking forward to starting the next chapter in their lives together.
“He took literally everything from me,” Whitlatch said. “I planned to grow old with her. I planned to have kids with her… planned to buy a house.”
The fatal crash happened Oct. 3 just after 9:30 p.m. the newlyweds had recently returned from their honeymoon.
Deputies say they spotted a man, later identified as 49-year-old Jason McQueary, driving in the wrong direction in Cabazon, California. They suspected he was driving under the influence and tried to pull him over, but McQueary didn’t stop.
Deputies say they chased McQueary at speeds of 90 to 95 miles per hour before he crashed into the back of Membrino’s car, which was stopped at an intersection. Membrino was pronounced dead at the scene.
Not only Membrino’s new husband but the rest of her family – including her mother, Buenita Shoemaker – are left devastated by her loss.
“It feels like my heart and soul has been ripped from [my] body. To never hear her laughter, look into her eyes, hear her voice, hold her or hug her again is an unbearable pain that no mother should have to endure,” wrote Shoemaker on GoFundMe.
She says her daughter was “full of love and light” and remembers her for her kindness as well as her love for animals and music.
The family is raising money for funeral costs.
“Adam and Carlie shared a love that so few of us ever get to experience in our lifetime. A husband should not have to use his wedding money to bury his wife!” Shoemaker wrote.
As they mourn, Membrino’s husband and family are calling for justice in her case, outraged that the suspect was released on bail just days after his arrest on charges of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.
“The minute he got behind that wheel, he made the conscious decision to take my daughter’s life,” Shoemaker said.
“Not only does he get to go home to celebrate with his family for the holidays, while my wife is in a grave, he has the potential of doing that to somebody else,” Whitlatch said. “I don’t stand for that.”
Online records show McQueary is scheduled to appear in court in January.
In the meantime, Whitlatch is now preparing for a future without the love of his life. He has been wearing his wife’s wedding ring on a chain around his neck.
“To see her happy is all I wanted,” Whitlatch said, “and all I still want. I just hope that whatever I do in life now, I make her proud.”
