ILLINOIS, USA — A grieving mother is hoping the new Illinois Secretary of State will continue his predecessor’s legacy and prevent the man who killed her daughters from getting his driver’s license back.
And, she says, she’s prepared to go to every hearing on the matter to do what she can to make sure former Illinois State Trooper Matt Mitchell never gets behind the wheel again.
“No life is worth losing over something that's preventable like this,” Schlau said.
Jessica, 18, and Kelli, 13, Uhl were leaving a family photoshoot the day after Thanksgiving in 2007 when Mitchell slammed his patrol car into their car, killing them. A police investigation concluded he was driving 126 mph, using his cellphone and police laptop at the time of the crash.
“I don't want anybody else to have to go through what their dad and I and their brother and sister have had to go through and their friends and family,” Schlau said. “We suffer every day."
"We miss them every day. There's a huge hole," she said.
Mitchell said he was rushing to answer an emergency call for service. Investigators determined there were already personnel at that scene and the crash that killed the Uhl sisters was his eighth crash.
He was sentenced to 30 months of probation as part of a plea deal, and his driver’s license was revoked for two years.
There is no limit on how many times a driver can petition the Illinois Secretary of State’s office to get their license back, and Mitchell started applying to get his back as soon as his probation ended.
Schlau attended every hearing, which happened every six to nine months, to lobby to keep him off the roads.
Then, in 2014, then Secretary of State Jesse White vowed to prevent Mitchell from getting his license back as long as he was in office, so Mitchell stopped trying.
And Schlau stopped having to go to the hearings.
Now, nine years later, White has retired.
Mitchell has filed a petition to get his license reinstated again.
The Secretary of State’s Office notified Schlau in June.
“I have been waiting for this,” Schlau said. “And I thought to myself, ‘It'll be 16 years that Jessica and Kelli have been gone in November.
"It's been 16 years. And then the other part of me thought, ‘Well, that's been 16 years that my daughters didn't get,'" she said.
Mitchell’s attorney J. Israel Slone did not return a phone call seeking comment.
A hearing on the matter was originally scheduled for Sept. 20 but has been delayed until Nov. 1 because Mitchell asked for more time to provide documentation regarding alcohol use and a mental health evaluation, according to a statement from Deputy Secretary of State Hanah Jubeh.
There will be a status hearing on Oct. 30 to “determine if the petitioner has provided these documents in a timely manner,” according to Jubeh’s statement.
As for whether Alexi Giannoulias will honor his predecessor’s policy?
“We’re not commenting beyond our statement on the matter since the hearing has not taken place,” Jubeh wrote.
Mitchell pleaded guilty to two counts of reckless homicide and two counts of aggravated reckless driving for the crash that killed Schlau's daughters.
Three days after he entered that plea and read a statement apologizing for his actions, he changed his story during a civil trial and blamed the crash on another vehicle.
That moment is what Schlau thinks about every time someone asks her whether there is anything Mitchell could ever do to make him worthy of getting his license back in her mind.
“He recanted that statement and said he was just doing his job, he didn't do anything wrong,” she said. “So, basically he undid the apology that he had done literally 72 hours prior and ever since then, we've not heard anything from him.”
Ultimately, the state paid more than $8.5 million to the Uhl sister’s survivors and another couple injured in the crash.
Mitchell resigned from the state police in 2010.
A hearing officer will preside over Mitchell’s upcoming hearing to get his driver’s license back, and Mitchell will have to present testimony and evidence. The hearing officer will then send a recommendation to the Secretary of State’s Office.
The secretary makes the final decision.
Schlau knows what she wants Giannoulias to do.
“I would like him to say, ‘As long as I'm in office, I'm going to continue Mr. White's legacy,’” Schlau said.
Schlau now runs the Jessica and Kelli Uhl Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to lobbying for safer driving laws across the country. She also speaks to new police recruits about the importance of driving without distractions and unnecessary speeding.
She said so far she’s received about 30 letters from citizens to send to the Secretary of State’s Office to keep Mitchell’s license out of his hands.
To send an email regarding Mitchell’s license, visit https://jessicaandkelliuhl.com/contact/ or send them to adminhearings@ilsos.gov.