A mother is fighting to change the law in the state of New Jersey after a drunken driver killed her young son in the summer of 2023 as he slept in his father's car during a fishing trip.
Last week, that driver took a plea deal that will have him serving 15 years in prison.
There's not a day that goes by when Kaylah Smith doesn't think of her 8 year old Javier Velez who was killed on Sunday, July 23, 2023. She has a tattoo of his face on her arm.
“I wear him on me because people ask me who is that?” Smith explained.
It's been more than a year and a half since officers say a driver under the influence, identified as Edward Johnston, took Javier's life around 3:25 a.m. along the White Horse Pike (U.S. Route 30) westbound in Absecon.
"There will be never be a moment when we will move on. There will be never a moment where we can let it go," Smith told NBC10.
JLast week, Johnston plead guilty to aggravated manslaughter for Javier’s killing.
Investigators tell NBC10 Johnston drove intoxicated, hitting 107 miles an hour, when he veered off the White Horse Pike in July of 2023. They say his car slammed into the back of a parked car where Javier slept in Absecon, New Jersey. His brother and father had been fishing in a nearby creek.
After the crash, officials said, the boy was taken to a nearby hospital where he died from his injuries.
The family has demonstrated outside of courthouses, fighting for a new law, they’re calling “Javi’s Law.” They say the bill is working its way through the legislature and could reach the Governor’s desk real soon. The law would keep a driver in jail immediately without bail for being under the influence and killing somebody. That did not happen with Johnston.
"I’ve done everything I could possibly do in my power and the only thing left to do is make sure that little boy is never forgotten. That is the goal for the rest of my life. To make sure everyone knows who Javier Velez is," Smith said.
