From Deseret News archives:

Painful odyssey: Family still struggles 28 months after Magna tragedy

Published: Saturday, Feb. 25, 2006 8:51 p.m. MST
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Tory Lee Jacques, at his sentencing before 3rd District Judge Stephen Roth, Nov. 5, 2004.

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Today, Jacques is in his 15th month of incarceration and is enjoying "high privilege status" at the Utah State Prison in Draper. He is one of 400 men involved in the prison's Conquest Program, an intensive substance abuse treatment program where participants are treated "like patients, not inmates," prison spokesman Jack Ford says.

It is called a therapeutic community, and Jacques spends six hours a day, six days a week, working on his substance abuse issues. He puts in 49 hours a week as a laborer in the Promontory Unit, cleaning the section, serving food and cleaning up after meals. He earns 40 cents an hour.

Jacques pleaded guilty to charges related to the crash. Roth ordered consecutive sentences for Jacques for second-degree felony vehicular homicide (one to 15 years in prison), and two third-degree felony charges of driving under the influence/causing serious bodily injury (zero to five years in prison on each count).

As he sentenced the young man, Roth urged Jacques to look forward to when his sentence is over and he gets his freedom back.

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"If that life and that freedom are to be of worth to you and the other people who have been affected, you'll have to live that life as a different person than you have been," Roth said.

"We are a society that believes in redemption, and that's what you need to focus on at this point."

Jacques goes before the state Board of Pardons and Parole in October 2007.

A number of visitors — including Jacques' grandparents — come to the prison regularly to see inmate No. 37191. Officials just approved two more visitors requested by Jacques. He has been well-behaved in prison and has no write-ups or disciplinary notations in his file.

After consulting with attorney Williamson, Jacques refused requests for interviews by a Deseret Morning News reporter.

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"I want you to know I'm sorry. I know that's not enough and that it never will be enough. I'm sorry. That's all I can say. I go to sleep at night, and this is the nightmare I am unable to awake from."

Tory Lee Jacques, in remarks to the Smith family at his sentencing before 3rd District Judge Stephen Roth, Nov. 5, 2004.

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Liza Smith visits the grave of her son, Darius Joseph Smith, nicknamed "Buddha," at the Valley View Memorial Park in West Valley City.

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