Columbus man sentenced in 109 mph DUI crash that killed two cousins
Three years later, Nancy Fort still has the voicemail on her phone.
It’s a message from the Russell County coroner, asking her to call back. She got it about 5 a.m. on June 24, 2017, the day after her son died.
“I got it in a voicemail, and I still have it,” she told Muscogee Superior Court Judge Ben Land. “I can’t delete it.”
When she called back, she learned her only son Anthony Tallis Fort, 25, was killed in a car crash in Columbus. She was advised to call the Muscogee County coroner for more information.
The still grieving mother was testifying Friday in a sentencing hearing for Michael Sean Shake, 43, who ran a red light while drunk and slammed into an eastbound car occupied by Fort and his cousin, Quinton Moss, 30, of Phenix City, killing both men.
Authorities have said Shake was arguing with a passenger and going 109 mph down Sixth Avenue at Ninth Street when the crash occurred.
The cousins were en route to a Russell County High School reunion at the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge, 815 Sixth Ave., when their 2007 Ford Fusion was hit just a block away. Nearby security cameras recorded the impact.
Moss’ mother also testified Friday.
“I loved him with all my heart,” Annie Moss said of her son Quinton. “I lost not only a son, I lost a best friend…. I’m hurt, I’m angry, and I’m sad.”
She told Land she’d last seen Quinton alive when they had dinner together. “The next time I saw my son, he was lying in a casket,” she said. She felt his life was stolen from him, as he never got to go back to college, to marry and have children of his own.
Fort’s mother said Anthony had a daughter, 7, who now wonders why she never sees him anymore. She quoted the child asking, “Where’s my Daddy at? Why doesn’t he take me to school anymore? … Can I go where he’s at?”
The two mothers were among five witnesses testifying Friday to the effect of losing two loved ones in a single night, and then having to endure the court hearings that followed.
“Every time we come up here, it rips the wound open again,” said Nancy Fort.
The sentence
They will not have to go back: Land sentenced Shake to 30 years in prison with 20 to serve and the rest on probation.
“There’s nothing I can do today that would bring total peace to anybody in the courtroom, or to anybody affected by this,” the judge said, later telling the families that his heart goes out to them, and he hopes Shake’s punishment will bring them “some level of peace and closure.”
Shake pleaded guilty Jan. 16 to two counts of homicide by vehicle, two counts of serious injury by vehicle for two passengers seriously injured in Shakes’ 1995 Isuzu Rodeo, and one count of DUI. Other traffic offenses such as reckless driving and running a red light merged into the other counts for sentencing.
The sentence was the same as prosecutor Veronica Hansis had offered Shake in exchange for a guilty plea, but he had rejected the offer, choosing instead to make a “cold plea” and leave Land to decide the penalty.
Land also fined Shake $500, ordered him to perform 40 hours’ community service after his release from prison, take a DUI risk-reduction course and get a mental health and substance abuse evaluation. Shake was also ordered to quit drinking and not take any drugs that aren’t prescribed for him.
Shake and his attorney Jennifer Curry had hoped he might get probation.
Shake apologized to the families, saying he was “wholeheartedly sorry” for the two fatalities. “They didn’t deserve that whatsoever,” he said, later admitting, “This is the end result of my being reckless.”
Hansis said Shake never admitted that he was drunk or that he was conscious of his speed, and instead claimed that he blacked out. A witness who was stopped at the red light Shake ran said Shake had to veer into the oncoming traffic lane to go around him.
Shake’s blood-alcohol content was .16, twice the .08 limit that justifies a DUI charge, and he had two previous DUI arrests, in 1993 and 2017, though the latter charge was reduced before he got 12 months’ probation, Hansis said.
Shake had been free on bond, restricted to house arrest and wearing an ankle monitor. After the sentencing, Curry asked the judge to let Shake leave, to get his affairs in order before reporting to jail.
Land refused, and deputies took Shake into custody in the courtroom.
This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 1:29 PM.