Mackenzie Frazee loved sunflowers...
She loved painting the wide yellow petals. She loved painting portraits of her boyfriend Chad. She loved art and fashion…and she loved life. She was 16 years old and was enjoying the last weeks of summer vacation before starting her junior year of high school in the fall. She had plans for her future. She was a great student, and she was loved: loved by her family, loved by her friends. She had every right to live out her life and live out her dreams. She was so full of potential and would have reached her goals--even excelled at them. She could have achieved her dream of studying art in France and had a family of her own one day. She was a sweet and normal teenage girl. But she succumbed to temptation. A typical teenage temptation to sneak out of the house while her parents were sleeping to attend a party with some friends.School was starting soon, after all, and all of her friends would be there. Why shouldn’t she be able to join them, too? Just for a little while, she thought. The party was fun when she got there, but there was a lot of drinking going on and Mackenzie was smart enough to know to stay away from alcohol. Her conscience started bothering her. She realized she should never have snuck out of the house, and after a little while she just wanted to go home, but home was two miles away. She needed a ride. She was anxious to get back before she got in trouble with her parents. Walk two miles or have a friend drive her home? He had offered to drive her, after all, and it seemed like the fastest way to get home. So, she accepted the ride.
What Mackenzie Didn’t Know
Milad Moulayi was 17 years old that fateful summer night on August 27, 2008 and had already been in big trouble earlier in the day. He had been forced to appear before a juvenile court judge for not just one, but two offenses: truancy and driving without a license. The judge saw a teenager out of control, and his mother, who was present with him in court, was clearly not keeping her son in line. He needed to be punished for his unlawful actions and so the judge suspended Milad’s learner’s driving permit for one year. The judge handed down the sentence to Milad and addressed the teenager standing with his mother by his side. The judge was stern as he told Milad that he was taking away his right to drive for an entire year and to make the consequences even clearer, he warned Milad that driving a car carried an enormous amount of responsibility. It seemed that Milad needed this extra verbal warning because Milad’s offenses demonstrated a complete lack of responsibility.
That night, Milad threw a small party at his house for his friends including Mackenzie Frazee. Who provided the alcohol when they were all under the age of 21? Perhaps Milad was the one who provided the alcohol…by simply helping himself and offering his friends free reign of his parents’ liquor cabinet. For himself he chose rum. He drank one shot, then another, and then some more. By the time he realized Mackenzie needed a ride home, he had ten shots of rum. Sure, he would offer to drive her home, he thought. It’s what a proper host would do. But by this time, the 17-year old teenage boy named Milad had become another person. The alcohol had overtaken his mind and taken away his ability to reason. He had become a different person. He held the door open for Mackenzie and she got in, thankful that she would be home soon.
The Ride Home
Milad had offered to drive Mackenzie home because he knew his mother’s car was in the driveway. It was hard not to notice a nice Mercedes-Benz. It was tempting to want to drive one, too. Bummer that his learner’s permit was suspended, he thought, but it was just a couple of miles anyway to Mackenzie’s. It was late, past 2:30 in the morning and the streets would be clear and he could drive really fast. Three of his other friends were ready to go home, too. He’d drive all of them, he said. It’s a big car, he kept insisting and insisting. Come on, he urged them, I’ll drive you all home, there’s plenty of room. So what if he didn’t have his learner’s permit, his befuddled brain was telling him. His friends didn’t need to know that. And there was no way he could be as drunk as his friends were telling him. Come on, you guys, what’s the big deal? he asked as he walked by the passenger side door where Mackenzie was already putting her seatbelt on. He stumbled a bit, but it was the bricks in the path on the front yard that were moving, he thought, it’s just a crazy pattern. He blinked to keep his eyes in focus as his friends were pleading with him not to drive. As he finally reached the driver’s side door he was glad he didn’t hear them pestering him with their pleas not to drive. He wasn’t that drunk, he thought. But his mind, his brain, his reason had checked out at this point and the alcohol had taken over. Are those three of Mackenzie’s friends hiding in the bushes, he squinted as he tried a few times to fit the key into the ignition. Well, at least he could show Mackenzie what a cool car it was, and how fast it could go. He loved driving that car and he knew where his mom kept the extra key. He managed to get the car in reverse and back out of the driveway, put it into drive and head toward Mackenzie’s neighborhood. Next thing he knew they were zipping past houses. He took a turn a little too sharply and was really impressed by how well the car handled the sharp curve. They were on the boulevard now and all the lights were green, so he gunned the engine to make it through all of them before they turned red. The car had power and he took his eyes off the road for a second to look at the speedometer to see how fast he was going. It took a while for the information processed from his eyes into his intoxicated brain, as he realized he was going over 100 miles per hour! He looked back up at the street and that’s when he saw that he had lost it. Lost control. Lost control of the car. He started to hit the brakes, but his foot wasn’t doing the action as fast as he wanted it to. It was taking too long, the center median was right in front of him, and it was at the speed of over 100 miles per hour that Milad Moulayi lost control of his mother’s Mercedes-Benz.
Mackenzie’s Final Moments
Scott Walker was the first to see the crash. What he thought he saw as he slowed down was a big hunk of metal with sparks coming out of it, like it was going to catch on fire. He stopped his own car to see if anyone needed help. Other drivers were stopping as well. What they saw was unbelievable. The crash reconstruction expert later estimated that Milad truly was going over 100 miles per hour when he lost control of the car, and driven over the center median. He knocked over two road signs, laying down over 500 feet of skid marks before finally slamming into a concrete light pole. The force of the final impact sliced the car in two. Suddenly, the people who had stopped to help were stunned by the sight of Milad standing up and walking away from his car, looking dazed and asking what was going on. Amazingly, Milad got out of the car with only minor cuts and bruises. As more and more people gathered around the crash, someone noticed Mackenzie inside. She still had her seat belt on, but she was not moving. The firemen and paramedics worked furiously to cut her free from her seatbelt and transport her to the hospital. But it was too late. Sweet, artistic, 16-year old Mackenzie Frazee was already dead. She was killed on impact due to massive blunt force trauma.
Guilty of Murder
Milad Moulayi was arrested for driving drunk at the scene of the accident and tried in a court of law for the murder of Mackenzie Frazee. Although he had only been 17 years old at the time of the accident, the prosecuting attorney was able to prove successfully that Milad should be tried as an adult. A mere thirteen hours before the crash he had been before a judge, getting his permit suspended, being warned by the judge that driving a car carried a huge responsibility. A few minutes before the crash his friends and classmates had pleaded with him not to drive because he was too drunk. And it was true, three of Mackenzie’s friends had hidden in the bushes to avoid Milad’s continuous pressure and persuasion that they get in and allow him to drive them home. Milad’s case was prosecuted by Susan Price of the Homicide Unit in the Orange County District Attorney’s office. He received his constitutional right to a trial by jury and that same jury found him guilty. They found him guilty of the crime of murder, rather than just vehicular manslaughter, because of all the warnings he had received regarding the responsibility of driving. On October 2, 2009, just a few weeks ago, Milad was sentenced to 15 years to life in State prison for murdering his friend Mackenzie Frazee by speeding over 100 miles per hour and driving under the influence of alcohol. He was the first minor in the history of Orange County to be tried as an adult for a DUI (Driving Under the Influence) murder. Murder. Taking the life of another human being by blatantly disregarding the warnings of a judge and his peers on the very day of the murder.
At Milad’s sentencing, Mackenzie’s father told a heartbreaking story. He said, “When [Mackenzie] was about 12 years old, she fell asleep on the way home after a movie. When we got home, I picked her up and carried her into our house, and as I put her to bed she asked me, “Daddy, will you always be able to carry me?” I said, “Yes.” The last time she was carried, I watched while my best friend and family members carry her out of the church, barely able to carry myself as I followed her casket.”
THE CHOICE IS YOURS...
A special thank you to:
AOMS parent Natasha Brkovic for compiling all of the information from the
Orange County District Attorney’s Office and local media sources to put
Mackenzie Frazee’s story into words for our students.
AOMS parent Laurie Williams for creating all of the visual pieces using
photos supplied by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Carolyn Millikin, Dave Kalk and Kelly Momeyer for your continuous support.
The entire group of Red Ribbon Week parent volunteers here at AOMS who cut ribbons, decorated the campus, secured donations, raffled prizes and did it all with a smile: Nicole Altier, Kimberly and Steve Miscall, Lenette Howard, Penni LeMasters, Michelle Ginn, Nicole Dunphy, Erica Christ, Jillian Marrs, Nancy Ragsdale, Barbara Eiben. Thank you for making this a memorable week for the students and let’s continue to help them remember, THE CHOICE IS YOURS!
All the best-
Laryssa Freeman
