The last thing the Bammers wanted was litigation.
They believed in forgiveness, they said, and had faith that it was God's job, not the courts', to balance the scales. But when the parents of the drunk driver who killed their daughter failed to express remorse, they got an attorney and sued.
"We prayed a lot about it," Nancy Bammer said of the family's decision to sue the parents of one of their daughter's friends. "It really wasn't for economics; there was a need to get the word out."
And in the end, that's what the Laguna Beach family settled for: enough money to start a scholarship in their daughter's name and the opportunity to deliver a straight-from-the-heart message to the jury on the nearly unthinkable consequences of drunk driving.
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Jennifer Bammer's life ended the night of Feb. 12, 2003, on a mountainous stretch of U.S. 395, just north of Bishop. She and two friends were headed to Mammoth for a weekend ski trip. Outside, it was pitch dark and 20 degrees, with a gentle flurry of snow.
Bammer, 22, was curled up in the back of the Ford Explorer after drinking wine from a bottle with her friend Audrey Rose Brecht, 19, for three hours.
Brecht, who been ordered by her parents not to drive because of two prior DUI convictions, was at the wheel. Heather Vinckier, 19, had done most of the driving that night, but after seven hours on the highway, she was tired and asked Brecht to take over.
Police said Brecht had a 0.23% blood alcohol content -- nearly three times the legal threshold of 0.08% -- and was traveling at 78 mph when she tried to pass a car. The Explorer skidded and slid across the road, striking the center divider and rolling three times.
Brecht and Vinckier, both wearing seat belts, crawled out of the wreckage relatively unscathed.
Bammer was thrown through a window and died of massive skull fractures, according to the Mono County coroner's office.
Back in Laguna Beach, Larry Bammer, Jennifer's 26-year-old brother and an officer with five years on the city police force, was at the family home recuperating. A man had fired a .357-caliber handgun at him during an October 2002 robbery attempt, striking him in the abdomen. He spent several days in intensive care.
He credits his family's faith -- they had all become born-again Christians in 2000 -- for helping them all cope in the aftermath.
