I Wish Mario Would Have Gone Home When His Visa Expired

By Andrew Riley • May 8th, 2008

A few days ago, Duane wrote an article about a guy named Mario Cadena. Mario was an illegal alien from Mexico that sped through a stop sign in Indiana just over a week ago causing a three-car crash in which four people died.

Amy Bartelmey & Stephen Hough Two of Mario’s Victims

In his post, Duane quoted an article which mentioned a couple of times that Mario was “battling” alcoholism. We here at All American Blogger don’t feel that struggling or battling against alcoholism is any excuse for getting behind the wheel of a car while drunk. We’re pretty firm in that opinion. It is our position that Mario is not in any way a victim in this situation.

We received an email from someone named Cindy White, who didn’t seem to like that we take that stance. One particular line from Duane’s article prompted her to send us a scathing email. That line was:

Is it just me, or are they trying to turn Mario into some sort of sob story because he “had long struggled with a drinking problem?”

Ms. White’s email:

Yes… it’s just you! I’ve read everything about this accident and I haven’t seen anyone turning it into a sob story! I had the channel 5 news and 2 newspaper writers at my door the day after this tragedy! After approx 10-15 minute interviews from each of them, they twisted the things we’d said to make a better story! My family expressed our sympathy for all the family’s and their tragic losses, but was that printed? HELL NO!!

I also have the power of atty for the “illegal immigrant” so I know for a fact the the toxicology reports are not in yet! I also had a police officer say that there was so much debris scattered around that all the could do was just put it in whatever car was close. Do you have proof that the beer bottle was Marios or just something that was picked up along the road and tossed into his car?

We don’t have proof about any beer bottle, and there was no beer bottle mentioned in our original story, so I don’t know why she is angry with us about that. I also want to point out that putting the words illegal immigrant inside quotation marks doesn’t change the fact that Mario didn’t go back to his home country when his visa expired.

We are all very much aware that he ran the stop sign and caused the accident but the reports and blogs are getting asinine! Calling him a “killer is about the stupidest comment I’ve heard so far. He was like a son to me.

If Mario was like a son to Ms. White, then we are truly sorry for her loss. But like it or not, Mario killed himself and three others. That makes him a killer. If any of our readers have a loved one who is an alcoholic, we encourage you do something about it before it’s too late. Just about the worst thing that can happen is for you to have to watch a loved one murder three people with a car and spend your life knowing you probably could have done something to prevent it. We wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Ms. White continues with a meandering rant.

Did you know the other victims personally? Do you ever read the Bible? There’s a time to be born and a time to die. As I stated, the accident was a tragedy for all involved so maybe you’d like to explain to me why God calls 4 year old children home that have been beaten, raped and murdered. Maybe you can explain why 911 happened or why my mom was taken from me at a young age because of cancer! Unless you’re a Native American, We’re all “illegal” in this country! Look what happened to there land!!

While everyone wants to bitch about the “Mexicans” being in this country, drive by any fields and see who’s picking the veggies that are on your table every nite. They’re working for $4.00 and hour because lazy Americans don’t want to lower themselves to do that type of work!

Manual labor isn’t beneath me, and I’m an American. When I was a kid I mowed lawns, walked beans, and did all kinds of manual labor for less than four dollars an hour. Most of my friends did that stuff too. So to say that it’s okay for an illegal alien to kill three people because Americans are lazy is really just a dumb argument. I will continue to bitch about illegal aliens until stories like this are a thing of the past. Come here legally and I’ll be the first one in line to welcome you with open arms. Legal immigration is a great thing, and All American Blogger supports it 100%.

Alcoholism is a disease just like cancer, lupus, etc.
It can’t be helped! I didn’t choose to have cancer 3 times but I did. It’s 2008 and people need to educate themselves a little better! Why don’t all the obese people get on a treadmill and stop stuffing themselves….because they can’t help it! I don’t know how you live with yourself!

Alcoholism might be a disease, I don’t really know. But I do know that getting behind the wheel of a car when you’re drunk is definitely not a disease. It is irresponsible and it is criminal. If you drive drunk and people die as a result - it is murder.

By the way, unless you have proof of the toxicology reports, what you wrote is slander and I have power of attorney for Mario. I want proof from you that what you said is factual or perhaps I’ll contact my atty!

C. White

Slander?

As most people know, slander is a “spoken defamation”. What Ms. White should be threatening us with is defamation of character. Of course she’d still be wrong. Defamation of character is spoken or written words that “falsely and negatively reflect on a living person’s reputation”.

While we haven’t seen the results of the toxicology reports (yet), we can draw on events of the past and make a reasonable assumption. We can’t say with absolute certainty that Mario Cadena was drunk when he ran that stop sign and killed all those people, but we can say that as an alcoholic with a history of drunk driving there is a good chance that he was intoxicated. I think Mario’s reputation was defamed a long time ago.

Cadena, an illegal Mexican immigrant who was never issued an Indiana driver’s license, had multiple driving offenses in Lake County on his record, including three speeding offenses and drunken driving charges filed in 2001 and 2003. [source]

I feel truly sorry for Ms. White, for Mario, and especially for the people Mario killed. But most of all, I wish Mario would have gone home when his visa expired. And I bet the families of his victims with that too.