Matthew Cordle, 22, was also charged with driving under the influence. "When I get charged I will plead guilty and take responsibility for everything I´ve done to Vincent (Canzani) and his family," Cordle said in the video posted last week on BecauseISaidIWould.com. [break]
Cordle recounted how he "blacked out" behind the wheel after a night of "heavy drinking" then hit another vehicle in a wrong-way crash on an Interstate highway on June 22.
The video ends with Cordle looking into the camera and telling viewers: "I´m begging you. Please don´t drink and drive. I can´t bring Mr Canzani back ... but you can still be saved. Your victims can still be saved."
Canzani, 61, was described in his obituary as "a gifted photographer" who attended art school in Ohio and later served in the US Navy as a submarine missile technician.
Local news reports at the time of the accident said Canzani died at the scene of the pre-dawn crash, and that medical staff described the driver of the vehicle that hit him as "very, very drunk."
Every day in the United States, almost 30 people are killed in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver, amounting to one death every 48 minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
It put the annual cost of alcohol-related crashes at more than $51 billion and the total number of drunk-driving fatalities in 2010 at 10,228 -- about a third of all traffic deaths.
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