My sympathy and condolences go out to the family. Even I know that no matter what a person has done when they pass away a part of you still grieves even if you don't agree with their lifestyle. As much as I hated my childhood, when my dad got sick I was at a loss for words when I cried about it. My husband said "honey, no matter what he did, he is still your father and you can't change that and part of you cares."

I grew up with an alcoholic, abusive father and no matter how many times we stepped in to try to get him to stop he would say " I am not an alcoholic, I can stop if I want to." You cannot "save" someone who isn't ready to be saved. If they can't admit they have a problem, they certainly aren't going to work on fixing that problem. This is a tragedy that so many families suffer through. Don't blame them for not stepping in and fixing the problem. Yes I am sure that in some cases there could have been someone to step in and fix it but only if the alcoholic wanted to fix it. Most families deal with the situations in whatever way they can. It is not an easy situation to be in. As a child I watched my dad drink and beat my mom. Are you saying that it is my fault for not stepping in to stop him, like I could have? The best I could do other than cry and ask my mom why she didn't leave was to leave the situation myself when I was 16. I told her I wasn't staying in it anymore, even if she chose to. I stayed in school full time and worked full time to take care of myself.

Enough with the maddness! My brother is gone, let him rest in peace. Many pieces of this puzzle will never be solved. The whole thing is wrong. May the responceable party pay the price.

I think what Burtness and I are trying to say is take these comments and this experience and turn them in to something good. Everyone doing just one little GOOD thing could make this world a better place. It's never to late to do good. Sometimes the truth hurts and if you can't take the truth then it's probably best to turn the page and carry on. Name calling like knotheads and telling people to shut there mouth is not going to help. As you can see I'm back. gs

BurtNess, you are ignorant. I am not wasting any more energy talking to you.

WOW.. It's going to take me a minute here to try to decipher what BurtNess was trying to say. Or at least what I think he was trying to say.
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First things first. It makes no sense to attack or condemn the family. Your words serve no purpose but to make them feel worse than they already do. For that I say you are a knothead.
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Regardless of what they may or may not have done to intervene in this persons' life, it is in the past. Nothing can be gained by criticizing that intervention now.
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And on a final note BurtNess, you sound like you have had an intimate relationship with the criminal justice system, but I guarantee that you do not know the system as well as you insinuate.

And as far as wisconsinheat is concerened not only do I not feel that your one lined comments are relevent. They are the exact words of enablers around the globe. You sit and say that "everything is ok" and "People are Knotheads". You are correct People are "Knotheads" and "everything will be OK" but not because of any comments you have made. Comforting someone in there time of need is a very admirable quality. you have this quality. Unfortunately you don't have the ability to see things for what they are and the world will continue to need people like you because with an attitude like that people will do wrong, You will blame someone else, and people will still do wrong. The world will nee people lik eyou to comfort them in their time of need

And as far as wisconsinheat is concerened not only do I not feel that your one lined comments are relevent. They are the exact words of enablers around the globe. You sit and say that "everything is ok" and "People are Knotheads". You are correct People are "Knotheads" and "everything will be OK" but not because of any comments you have made. Comforting someone in there time of need is a very admirable quality. you have this quality. Unfortunately you don't have the ability to see things for what they are and the world will continue to need people like you because with an attitude like that people will do wrong, You will blame someone else, and people will still do wrong.

It has become apparent to me bases on the last sentence of your previous post you are either not very wise or not very old. If the latter is true, I am truly sorry that you have to experience this type of thing at such a young age. But if in fact it is the first. Let me explaine something about the court system that you and I have voted for. When someone is arrested, they are charged with a crime. The police or COPS as you put it, are not to decied a treatmnet plan or even if that person is guilty. They only arrest the person and help the DA build a case to convict that person. If convicted of the crime,that crime holds a minimum stay in jail/prison. When that Minimum is fulfilled the can be paroled. If they are in fact Paroled they begin to be rehabilitaed IN society, along with you and me. When they infringe on my rights and yours they can be locked back up. BUT if they don't they cannot be locked back up. You can't be locked up for a crime you are going to do in the future, this is not the movies.

Having children of my own, I would not want people like this on the streets, and after reading the first paragraph here, we know we can't just lock people up because we feel like it. So what choice to we have. We can help rehabilitate them, get them help, get them counciling, GO to AA meeting with them. Make it a projec, a project with everyones best interest in mind. The addict, the family, and society. Did you in fact stage an intervention? If so, was it a serious event or just the motion of careing.

You are correct in saying that I don't know your family, but I do know the families of many, many addicts. the stories are all the same. At some point the person gets better, or dies. The thoughts that many families have are that the person can return to the social drinking world. If that person is not strong enough to say no, then you have to say no for them. Wh at I mean by this is, have you ever invited this person to a party where achohal was being openly served, Im sure you have. No shock there. have you watched this person have "one" because "one" won't hurt. When the "one turned to "All" did you then wish hateful thoughts on this person because they "runined" you party or "Why did they even come" or even better "The world will be better when he is gone".
I am not speaking this way because I feel the need to attack you, I truely feel for your pain. But when I see this type of thing, the family always knew what the people were capable of they just chose to do nothing about it.

I have personaly seen people like you in action. The help you offer usualy has a selfish motive. Addicts don't respond very well to disengenious people. This person could have been saved and the son could have been a doctor. Your uncle, the other uncle involved, is still alive. Have you sacrificed him yet.
He still has a chance. Can he be saved, Thats up to you?

BurtNess, did you pay attention to anything I wrote? Apparently not. Like I said, we DID help them. And we did tell the cops that they needed more help. Your right about one thing. I didn't help them all the time. Not because I didn't care but because I have two small children that I am trying to give a good life to. They shouldnt be dragged in the middle of a messed up situation like this. What I meant about blaming the court system is that if you have someone who is constantly breaking the rules, then why let them out over and over if you know what is goona happen. You can't accuse us of giving up. You don't know anything about us. I guess we all can't be as perfect as you! Gag, gag!

BurtNess...You're clueless.

"They shoulve never let them out of jail so many times" Why? Did they not fulfill ther obligations to the courts. A DUI does not hold a life sentence in this state.
Again the sensible thing to have done would have been to contact the Parole officer and inform them they needed help. People in that condition sometimes need coaxing into "wanting help". If you feel you did all you can do. Then your mourning for the loss of your uncle occured many years ago, when you decided he was a lost cause. Sorry but that is the truth. You felt it was time to give up on him. Why would you think he should have wanted to quit. being an addict is a disease you are correct, so is cancer, but the families of cancer patients continue to fight where addicts families usualy give up and say "Well i've done what I can, Not my problem any more"

Thank you wisconsinheat from all of David Newer's family.

I rest my case about KNOTHEADS.

First of all BurtNess, I am not mad at myself one bit. My family has helped them many many times. The problem is, no matter how much help you give someone with a disease like this, if they really don't want to stop, they won't no matter what. You make it sound like my family did nothing. You can only beg and plead with someone so many times. I partly blame our courts. They shoulve never let them out of jail so many times. There is a difference between someone who drinks and someone who is an alcoholic. They all had been in treatment many times. My family crossed the lines for them numerous times to help them. How dare you accuse us of not helping the people we love. You don't even know our family. My two uncles and cousin knew that they were loved no matter what condition they were in. Like I said, you can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved.

BurtNess...You are in a dream world.

jamiesgirl,
"I think that gs needs to shut his or her mouth" .gs

The same rights that you are given to grieve in an open forum are the same rights gs has to his opinions.

However, alcohol affects people in different ways, to say one person can drink a case of beer and not hurt anyone, and someone can drink 2 mixed drinks and kill their whole family. FACT-alcohol is a chemical, when taken can impare judgement. The same judgement's that keep you from killing a family member, and dancing on a table. They are not the same but the inhabitions that are removed due to alcohol are the same.

As the deceased niece, you hold no resposibility to the death of your uncle. As you should not, you were not there. Could you have done something to stop it at the time? Probably not. Could you have done something to prevent it? YES! As both the deceased and accused were both regulars to our court system they have quite a substantial record. In that record it states that both have spent most of there adult lives in jail, or on Probation/Parole. A simple phone call to the Parole/Probation officer could have gotten them the treatment they needed. Unfortunately you were probably not willing to cross the line, that along with treatment would have come punishment for there lack of respect for athority.
Instead of gathering in your Uncle's death, another way to have "Gotten Involved" would have been to have an intervention, letting the deceased and accused know that you cared for them DRUNK, or SOBER.

Did anyone in your family ever talk to the father and son, and attempt to help them out of the misery they were in. Happy people don't drink or do drugs. They were obviously unhappy.

I'm sure my opinion on the matter will be commented on. As you are commenting on it remember you are not mad at me you are mad at yourself. We all live our lives day by day, there is always tomorrow to fix something that is broken. Unfortunatly, tomorrow never came for your Uncle, and the chance you had to do something about this is gone. On the bright side, you may have the opportunity to help someone in the future. You now know the signs, and the statement "We never thought it would come to this" will never cross your lips again.

jaimiesgirl, you are right. I just trust that you can tell by reading the comments who the knotheads are and take those comments for what they are worth....nothing. Although it's got to be hard to see what's written, not everyone feels that way.
Most people realize that we all are human and but for the grace of God there go I.

I think that gs needs to shut his or her mouth. Lauriemike, David's sister, was just trying to say that an alcoholic is still a human being. Yes, thank god, no innocent people were killed by this man, his son or the other brother. I am David's niece. I admit that he didn't live a good lifestyle. I didn't care to be around him. But, when he wasn't drinking, he was a decent person. He loved his family and his family loved him. I have two children of my own. I would get so mad when I knew they would drive drunk. I always said that if they got in an accident, I would want it to be them to get hurt, not the innocent people. I get gs saying that and I agree. But to make the comment that we all got lucky because of this situation, that is sick. What a rude comment to make when he/she knows the family can read this. I believe we all have the right to say our opinions but have some class. If you can't express yourself the right way, then leave your big mouth shut.

Don't get me wrong I do feel sorry for the family but don't blame It on the alcohol. I'm 45 and I drink alcohol also but don't have multiple DUI's or other arrests like them and have never killed anyone. It was there own fault not the alcohol. I do agree that people should be able to live there life the way thay want but not when It can affect good people. There drunk driving multiple times could of killed an innocent person and who's going to pay the fathers hospital bills caused by his son before he died? I hope not us!

A comment to the comments. This is such a horrible, heartbreaking, unbeliveable, hard to consume thing that has been done. No one feels the heartbreak of this like the family. We get one chance at life, what we choose to do with it our own chose. Alcohol has ruined more lives than one can count. This is a perfect case of that. These guys have been in trouble in and out for years. Regardless they are still human beings and they are someones son and brother. When the family reads such bad comments about this it just hurts more. They already know their flaws. It's easy to judge them, and they earned most of this judging, I don't dispute that, the truth hurts but their still part of the family God put togeather. These guys Loved eachother, it was Alcohol gone wrong. It's easy to hate the stranger that would do this, it's hard to have to dismiss one of your own. There was no excuse for this and he will pay the price. Dave is gone and hearts will hurt for-ever. No one deserves to be beat to death, I don't care what kind of person you are no one deserves to leave this world like that. The wrong path they chose. No one can hurt him anymore! Dave can rest in peace, he's finally free. Laurie ( Dave's Sister)

It doesnt take much to set anyone off especially if they were doing drugs or had been drinking.

Jacob's bail is $25,000 for murder and this guy has a history of bail jumping?

Looks like we all just got lucky, two low lifes removed from the streets at once. Just check out the father and sons record's on the wisconsin circuit court website for yourself. I can't feel sorry for people like this. Hopefully thay will throw away the key after thay lock the son up so an innocient person doesn't get hurt.

Sad. Very similar to that beating that happened in Readstown.

Too bad. I feel so bad for that family. This is what happen when children lose respect for themselves and their family. Terrible.

WOW!!!!! Not your typical father son relationship. Something went way wrong. It will be interesting to hear the whole story. This is a horrible story.

How could he do this to ANYONE?

My sympathies go out to the family at this hard time

that is so sad. how could someone do that to there own father?