http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/051108/jag_277817745.shtmlTen years ago, St. Louis Rams linebacker Leonard Little drove while drunk and killed a woman named Susan Gutweiler in a car accident. Little was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served 90 days in jail.
Critics have suggested that Little got off easy. He agreed with them for a long time.
"A few weeks later, I tried to kill myself," Little told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "I had gone back home to my mom's house outside Knoxville [Tenn.]. And the first thing I did was just go down in the basement. It had no windows and just a bathroom, a sink and a television. I stayed in the dark for days. All I did was cry. I couldn't deal with what I'd done."
Little said his mother made him see a psychologist, and one day while driving home from the office, he stared at the tall trees that lined both sides of the highway.
"It was like I was in one of those movies where the good angel is on one shoulder and the bad one's on the other," he said. "Well, the bad one kept telling me, 'Just go ahead, Leonard, turn the wheel. It'll be easy. Crash into those trees, and all this pain will be over.' I actually did turn the wheel. I did it. I tried to end my life. I swerved the steering wheel. But like I said, I guess there was a good angel on my other shoulder, because just as soon as I swerved, I turned the wheel right back."
When Little told his mother what he did, she told him: "Do you want your daughter to live like you did without a father [Little's father left shortly after he was born]? I said no. Then she said, 'You can't kill yourself. You can't do that to her.' I told her I wouldn't do it again, but I still went back into the basement in the dark."
Little gave the interview at a school where he told a class of seventh-graders: "Please don't do what I did. I killed someone, and I constantly think about the hurt I caused that family. I'm not a bad person, but I made a bad decision, and it cost someone her life and ruined her family's lives. You don't want that burden on you."
In a twist of fate, Little's brother was shot and killed by a female acquaintance who was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
"I couldn't be mad at her," Little said. "The Bible always talks about forgiveness, and I am not a perfect man. I had no choice [but to forgive]. What happened to her already happened to me, too. How could I not forgive her after all that happened to me."
