20th anniversary of fatal crash nears

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - It was twenty years ago, Christmas Eve, when Gordon House drove drunk and killed a mother and her three daughters. While drunk drivers are still ruining lives in New Mexico, there's no denying that the Gordon House crash changed the way we look at drunk driving.

News 13 spoke to a woman who lost a daughter and three grandchildren at that crash and used her pain and anger to make New Mexico a better place.

“I always pull out some of the video and I watch them the few days before Christmas because I can jump back into those videos and be there,” Nadine Milford said sitting around Christmas decorations in her Westside home Friday.

Twenty years later she still remembers what happened as if it were yesterday.

The girls, Melanie and Paul Cravens were headed to her house after church to sing Christmas carols to neighbors.

Milford explained what happened that night, “It got late and I thought oh well, I am going to go to bed and I knew they would come in and kiss my face and say okay, grandma we are here. Let's have chocolate and cookies. And I would get up and we would have chocolate and cookies. But my husband came in and he woke me up and he said something bad has happened.”

She flipped on the TV and saw the now infamous crash on I-40 in Albuquerque. She recognized Paul and Mel’s car.

Cops say a very drunk Gordon House was driving the wrong way when he hit the Cravens head on. In shock, Milford says a friend went to the scene for her. When he came back, “The first thing I said was David who was it? And he said Nadine it's all of them.”

Melanie and the girls were killed. Paul miraculously survived but with life changing injuries. Nadine says she spoke to her son-in-law just this morning.

“He said I still miss them Nadine. I said, you know what Paul, I do too.”

Paul never remarried.

Nadine and her husband went on to tirelessly push for tougher DWI laws.

“I can't think of anything I would have rather done with my life after that crash than to do what I did,” said Milford.

She was instrumental in getting lawmakers to close drive-thru liquor stores, make a fourth DWI a felony and strengthen the penalties for drunk drivers.

Now 74, her fighting days are over, and she looks forward to her family spending Christmas playing games and coming together instead of giving gifts.

You can still hear the pain in her voice though when she talks about deadly DWI crashes of recent years or the idea of someone getting behind the wheel drunk.

“Please, please,” said Milford. "Don't drink and drive."

Milford says she does not think about Gordon House.

House was released from prison in 2009; after serving half of his 22 year sentence.

He sat down with News 13 after his best friend was killed by a suspected drunk driver just four months after he got out of prison and talked about how destructive alcohol can be.

“This chemical...it has no feelings...it has no compassion...it has no love,” said House in that 2009 interview.

> Watch a video the Milford family made in honor of Melanie Cravens and her three daughters.