Elkmont man could get life for reckless murder in death of mother

By Kelly Kazek
kelly@athensnews-courier.com

June 24, 2009 09:00 pm

An Elkmont man could spend life in prison after pleading guilty to reckless murder in the death of a young mother last year in a head-on collision on Alabama 127, said Limestone County District Attorney Kristi Valls.
Stanley Wray, 45, of 30681 Bob Coffman Lane entered a guilty plea in Circuit Judge Bob Baker’s court June 18 and awaits sentencing. A date has not been set.
Valls said the minimum sentence is 10 years in prison and maximum is life.
Wray was “very intoxicated” at the time of the April 26, 2008, wreck that killed Carrie Ann Gooch Nave, 31, and seriously injured her 11-year-old daughter, Valls said.
At the time of the wreck, Wray was charged with probation violation for felony driving under the influence of alcohol, meaning he had three or more arrests for DUI in a five-year span.
Nave’s daughter, Columbia, then 11 and a student at Elkmont High School, was flown by MedFlight helicopter to Huntsville Hospital suffering from a broken right wrist, broken left elbow, broken right femur to which doctors had to attach pins, and cracked ribs. Her husband, Chad Nave, 30, was treated at Athens-Limestone Hospital and released.

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