SEQUIM — Debra Willey Boynton has sat in relative silence for the last year, watching the fallout from a New Year’s Eve 2002 car crash that took the life of her 22-year-old son and two other young people.

She was Paul Boynton’s mother, and she feels his loss like a dagger through the heart.

“He was my best friend, and I’ll miss him always,” Boynton said Saturday from her home on Palo Alto Road, ironically and heartbreakingly close to where the horrific wreck happened.

Boynton has an unlisted phone number and successfully eluded news media in the year following the crash.

During that time, the driver of the car — 27-year-old Mary Kniskern — was criminally charged, fled the state to avoid trial and recently was apprehended in California.

She is expected to be returned to Clallam County this month to face trial on charges of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault for the deaths of Paul Boynton, Heather Holden and Aaron Gambell, and injuries to Courtney West and Stuart Bury.

That’s to be expected, Boynton said. “And it’s proper,” as Kniskern allegedly chose to drive after drinking.

But something about the community’s response to the incident has left Boynton with an uneasy feeling, she said.

And she believes it’s time to speak out.

“If I had one wish, it would be to look at this thing from another perspective — to take the focus off of Mary and put it where it belongs: on the abuse of alcohol,” she said.

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The rest of the story appears in the Sunday Peninsula Daily News.