Mark Millican
markmillican@daltoncitizen.com
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Though the man who killed her husband is serving time for vehicular homicide for driving while he was drunk and high on pills, at least he lives and breathes every day, said Virginia Dyer.
“We have to go to a graveyard, to a cold tomb rock and talk to Ronnie. We go down every Father’s Day, take balloons on his birthday. On our anniversary I have to take roses to the grave,” she said, her voice cracking during Victims Visitors’ Day at the Whitfield County Courthouse on Tuesday. “We got married when I was 16, he was 17. We’d been married 34 years when that happened. I live with it every day. I’d give anything to hear him walk across my floor.”
Dyer and her two daughters were three of what were expected to be more than 100 people from 38 families — victims of violent crime — who attended the special day co-sponsored by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Victim-Witness Assistance Program of the Conasauga Judicial Circuit (Whitfield and Murray counties). Attendees could talk one-on-one to one of the five board members who drove up from Atlanta or a staff member from either the board or the circuit. Victims are able to “have input” into the parole process and access information concerning the person who committed the crime. They receive information regarding the current status of their offender, and can register to receive future notification if that status changes.
Ronnie Dyer was a lieutenant with the Dalton Fire Department who had a painting business on the side, and was on his way home on March 8, 2006, said Virginia Dyer.
“He was on the (cell) phone with me,” she recalled. “I heard the glass breaking in the truck. Ronnie’s last words were, ‘Oh, my God!’ First he said, ‘What the heck?’ and then he said, ‘Oh, my God!’ I had cooked spaghetti, and I went cold on the inside when the phone went dead. But I kept saying, ‘Ronnie, set your tea down.’ I thought he had a glass of iced tea, because he drank iced tea or coffee all the time. And I just said, ‘Set your tea down and pick the phone back up.’ I kept telling him that. The phone never would do nothing. I called it back, it went to voice (mail) — and then it went dead.”
Dyer said Steven Bunch, the driver who slammed into her husband doing 78 mph on Cleveland Highway, was celebrating because he hadn’t been “sent off” on prior charges — including DUI and speeding — when he went to court earlier that morning.
Gale Buckner, the immediate past chair of the pardons and paroles board and a native of Murray County, said a wide range of sentiments are expressed by victims.
“What I’ve seen is that some victims come in at the beginning of the interview and are angry and emotional — a whole myriad of emotions going through (them) — and just by being able to talk and realize that somebody is listening to them (helps),” she said. “Some of these offenses took place before we ever had a victim-witness program anywhere in the state, so they never had an opportunity to have anyone talk with them or to hear them out. And by the end of that interview, you can physically see and you can hear a relief of sorts (like they’re thinking), ‘I’ve been able to say everything I wanted to say in this private area where no one will ever know what I’ve said, and it’s helped me be able to move forward.’ So I think it’s one more step in a healing process.”
The day’s events are designed to bring together victims of crime along with victim service providers, justice professionals, allied professionals and volunteers who work to assist victims of crime and their families. Since their inception in 2006, nearly 1,000 victims or relatives have attended the 13 Victims Visitors’ Day events that have been held at various locations around the state. Dalton hosted the second such event in June of 2006.
Dyer said she hopes a 15-year prison term changes the man who changed the lives of her family, including daughters Kathy Williams and Denise Rhinehart, and son Lynn Dyer.
“I know what Steven done is wrong,” she said, “but I hope when the man gets out that he’ll make a change and he’ll help people because that’s what Ronnie would have wanted.”
