A drunk driver killed Nate 3 years ago. His family remembers him as he was

Brad Stratton sips coffee out of a Styrofoam cup just past 9 a.m. in the lobby of Bloomington’s downtown Springhill Suites. It’s May 7, 2024. The hotel sits two blocks north of the Monroe County Circuit Court, where he and his family spent hours the previous day waiting for closure — and roughly three blocks south of where his son, Nate, was struck and killed by a drunk driver.  

“Bloomington's not a happy place for us,” Brad says. “Nate loved IU, and we’re happy he enjoyed his time here, but it’s hard for us to come here.” 

Elizabeth, Nate’s mom, and Ceci, one of his older sisters, file in and out of the lobby. Nate’s grandparents make small talk with family friends who came to support them during the sentencing of Nate’s killer.  

In three hours, the family is leaving Bloomington. Maybe for the last time. 

Brad and Elizabeth are returning to their home in Fort Myers, Florida. They moved out of Minnesota after Nate graduated high school.  

Ceci will go back to Los Angeles, where she works as an architect.  

Abby, Nate’s oldest sister, and her fiancé, Lynn, will head to Washington D.C. In a year’s time, they’ll be married. 

Outside the hotel, the sky opens up over Bloomington. Pudgy droplets pound the glass bay windows looking out from the hotel.  

Ceci and Elizabeth join Brad in the common area to talk to a reporter. Ceci suppresses an eyeroll as her dad calls himself a geek.  

“You aren't,” she says. “You’re an athlete.” 

“Yeah, but I was a technology guy,” he responds.  

Tongue-in-cheek bickering gives way to fond remembrance of Nate. He was a geek, they all agree. He played “Valorant” on a team at IU. He played “Magic: The Gathering” and “Dungeons & Dragons.”  

They still remember Nate as he was: vibrant, smart, kind. He’s still in the room.  

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated 13,524 deaths caused by impaired vehicle operation in 2022, the year Nate was killed. That’s around one death every 40 minutes in the U.S.  

Some who died were driving impaired. Others were caught in the crossfire of decisions they had no part in. All are eventually reduced to statistics — the ones and twos that add up to thousands, dots on a graph.  

But nobody is a number. Nate was not a number. He was a brother and a son, and three years after his death, the ripples of his death are still growing.

*** 

Nate Stratton, then a junior at IU’s Kelley School of Business, left Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers on Kirkwood Avenue in the early morning of Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022.  

Nate rented an electric scooter, as many students do. He was heading to his apartment near 17th Street. He rode west on Kirkwood Avenue and took a right on Walnut Street, heading north. 

Around that same time, Madelyn Howard, then 22, left Kilroy’s Sports Bar — where she was a bartender — and headed to her car parked outside The Bluebird on Seventh and Walnut. She had been drinking alcohol at Kilroy’s for hours in celebration of a friend’s birthday.  

Toxicology reports later showed her blood-alcohol level was 0.226% — nearly three times Indiana’s legal driving limit. Court documents described friends “pouring liquor down her throat.” 

Howard and friend Taylor McCollough got into Howard’s black Mercedes sedan, with Howard in the driver’s seat.  

They started driving north.  

At approximately 1:29 a.m., Howard swerved into the bike lane where Stratton was riding on his scooter near the intersection of 12th and Walnut streets. She was going well over the speed limit, shown in surveillance video from a nearby Domino’s Pizza.  

Dustin Bowman, a Bloomington resident who witnessed the incident from his front porch, thought she could have been going 60 miles per hour, he said in the sentencing hearing. Police were unable to determine the exact speed, citing a lack of brake marks on the road. 

Howard struck Nate from behind with her vehicle, shattering the windshield at the point of impact. Bowman described it sounding like a chair crashing through a window.  

Nate was thrown from the scooter, launched from the south side of the intersection to the north side — nearly 50 feet.  

The same video shows Nate’s shoe landing around 100 feet from the point of impact.  

Bowman and his partner rushed to Nate, who lay unresponsive on the sidewalk. They called 911 and sat with him, waiting for paramedics to arrive.  

McCollough looked over to Howard in the driver’s seat. In one interview with police, he said he asked, “Did we hit something?” In another interview, he said Howard asked him.  

Howard did not brake. Instead, she continued to drive north on Walnut, now dragging Nate’s scooter underneath her car. One video captured by an Uber driver at the intersection of 15th and Walnut showed a trail of red sparks trailing her car, caused by the scooter scraping against the ground.  

She turned right on 17th Street, drove two blocks east to Lincoln Street, drove another two blocks north and came to rest at the intersection of 19th and Lincoln.  

A nearby group of partygoers from across the street reportedly shouted to Howard and her passenger that they were dragging a scooter underneath their car. The group helped them lift the car and pry the scooter from underneath.  

Police found Howard by the vehicle around 1:59 a.m., visibly intoxicated and unstable. At the scene, officers asked her how the crack in her windshield came to be. She said somebody hit her car with a baseball bat.  

Madelyn Howard spent less than 24 hours in jail after being apprehended by police, released on a $500 bond.  

Nate Stratton was taken to the hospital around 2 a.m., where he clung to life for several hours. Emergency room doctors repeatedly restarted his heart. But it became clear he wasn’t coming back. 

A phone call woke Brad and Elizabeth at their residence in the mountain town of Avon, Colorado. Elizabeth remembers talking to one doctor over the phone racing down I-70 toward an airport to get to Bloomington.  

“He said every time they restart [his heart], they’re doing more damage to his body, and based on the head trauma, there was really no hope,” she said. “And I said, ‘Are you asking me to let him go?’ And he said, ‘It’s up to you.’” 

“I said, ‘I’ll let him go if you can’t save him.’” 

She remembers making that decision every time she drives down that stretch of road. 

Nate died as the sun rose over Bloomington. He was 20 years old.  

***

“Nobody knows what to say when you tell them you lost a child,” Brad said. “I wish people would ask, ‘What was his name?’”  

His name was Nate.  

Nate Stratton grew up in Excelsior, Minnesota, just outside Minneapolis. He was the youngest of three siblings. Abby, his oldest sister, was six years his senior; Ceci was three years older.   

Brad and Elizabeth made sure all their kids got a well-rounded education. They all had to try an instrument and a sport, and for the whole family, alpine skiing was a must. They held Nate’s memorial service at Hyland Hills in Bloomington, Minnesota, a ski hill they frequented.  

Nate took to it, skiing competitively into his mid-teenage years. At 16, when the competition got tougher, he started trying to gain weight to better match his opponents.  

“He was trying to bulk up and train, and every morning he’d come down looking thinner and thinner,” Elizabeth said.   

Nate’s concerned mom took him to the pediatrician, where he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. The condition causes the body to fail in producing insulin, a hormone that allows cells to turn glucose into energy. It can be life-threatening if not diagnosed and properly treated. 

"We did a lot of crying that day together,” Elizabeth said.  

But even after a life-changing diagnosis, he was his family’s champion. He fought tooth and nail to relieve his mom — who had a phobia of needles — of injecting him with insulin before he was discharged.  

The nurse didn’t relent, and Elizabeth had to inject him once to prove her capacity to do so. But she never had to again.  

And just months later he was in Austria, training to compete in alpine ski races despite a diagnosis that changed his life.  

“I don’t know many 16-year-olds who could handle being diagnosed with diabetes and take that with grace,” Brad said.  

Nate was as kind as he was strong. Abby said when she thinks about having a family, she thinks about raising her children to embody that kindness.  

“I think we're good people in our morals and our character, but Nate was a far kinder person to strangers than I was,” she said. “He was he was kinder to strangers on the street. He was kinder to people he didn't know very well.” 

And to his friends and family, he was a light in their darkest hours. His family described his struggles with depression in his sophomore year of college, but said it never stopped him from leaping to the defense of those he held dear.  

“Even when he was struggling with his own mental health, Nate still helped other people with their problems and was always empathetic,” Brad said. “People came to him to be vulnerable and knew they were safe.” 

***

Ceci Stratton woke up sick in a West Hollywood hotel the morning of the 18th. It was a gloomy, overcast California morning.  

She celebrated a friend’s birthday the night before. Ceci gushed about her little brother that night to anyone who would listen.  

“Nate came up and I literally was talking about how, like, ‘Oh my gosh, like he's doing great. I’m so proud of him,’” she said.  

Ceci and Nate didn’t start as best friends. The older sister-younger brother dynamic is one often fraught with tough love and competition.  

Ceci, Nate and Abby competed in everything they did. The three were, by all accounts, overachievers.  

Abby went to Northwestern University for undergrad; Ceci went to USC to study architecture. When Nate entered IU’s prestigious Kelley School of Business, it was almost a matter of principle.   

Ceci and Nate shared a loving, bickering, competitive sibling relationship no different from most until 2019, near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. They discovered a shared love of Japanese anime as they became increasingly trapped at home.  Late-night anime watch parties — “Attack on Titan” and “Naruto” — and Spotify jam sessions — Miki Mitsubara and Steve Lacy — became the foundation of a bond like a sailor’s knot.  

“I would describe him as a soulmate,” Ceci said. 

They kept bonding over the little things. Skiing down hills with the same music pumping through their headphones. Demolishing trays of peanut butter Rice Krispies treats from Cub Foods. Going to the gym after Nate supposedly developed “an eight-pack" during a summer in Florida.  

Nate helped Ceci out of her shell. 

“I would just kind of hang around all day, and he'd come home from his internship, chug some Celsius energy drink and go up to the gym,” she said. “I would just follow him around the gym and he would show me what to do. And I felt really empowered and really strong because he was so confident.” 

When her dad called her that gloomy morning, Ceci snuck around the several girls sleeping on the floor in the hotel room to take the call outside. Most of them were virtual strangers to her.  

She knew something was wrong the moment she picked up the phone. 

“Are you sitting?” her dad asked.  

*** 

Just outside Courtroom 313 at the Monroe County Circuit Courthouse, Stratton’s friends and family crowded silently around the door. It was about half an hour before the May 6 sentencing hearing. Nearly 600 days had passed since Nate’s death. 

Down the hall and around the corner, Howard’s friends and family gathered near the stairs.  

Hardly a word was exchanged within the families, let alone between them.  

Bailiffs escorted the Strattons into the courtroom first. Next came the Howards. They sat divided only by an imaginary line in the sand, shoulder to shoulder.  

Both knew that by the end of the day, a sentence would be delivered. 

Howard never contacted the Strattons in the 20 months between the incident and the sentencing. Her first time addressing the family opposite her came just before deliberation. 

“I will never excuse my acts,” she said. “If I had known that I struck Nathaniel, I would have run into oncoming traffic to help him.”  

The Stratton family sat stone-faced as Howard delivered her statement.  

Katharine Liell, Howard’s attorney, said in her concluding remarks that it was her decision to prohibit the Howard family from contacting the Strattons, and that it should not be held against Howard herself.   

Jeff Kehr, attorney for the state, concluded by recommending the maximum sentence of 16 years for Howard. 

Judge Darcie Fawcett, who presided over the case, delivered her verdict after nearly eight hours of testimony. Howard was sentenced to 10 years in an Indiana correctional facility, two years of probation, and a driver’s license suspension for 16 years. 

“There are moments where words can just do nothing to help,” she said. “This is one of those moments.”  

Both families broke into tears as the verdict was delivered. Abby and Ceci held each other close.  

Howard sobbed silently as officers entered the courtroom to take her into custody.  

Stratton’s family took down the portrait of Nate that had overlooked the hearing all day from the state’s side of the courtroom. All parties filed slowly out of the courtroom.  

“There’s no victory in this for anyone,” Brad said after the hearing.   

Howard’s legal team filed a motion to appeal the verdict just days after the sentencing hearing concluded.  

For another agonizing 14 months, the Stratton family waited. For 14 months, Madelyn Howard’s sentence was in limbo.  

Brad said once she filed a plea, any apology made in court was a moot point. Abby said she doesn’t believe her. 

But on July 30, 2025, the appellate court returned with a lengthy denial of Howard’s plea.  

“Howard’s argument regarding the nature of her offense does not persuade us that her sentence is inappropriate,” the decision read. “In fact, the circumstances of this case might even justify a lengthier sentence, but we choose to affirm the trial court who was in the best position to consider the evidence and credibility of those who testified.” 

The court’s decision was worded so strongly Brad and Elizabeth wonder if it may be used as precedent for future appeal decisions. 

Nine days following the appeal decision, the family gathered for a celebration. 

Abby took the surname Reed when she married her husband Lynn on Aug. 8 this year. They held the ceremony in Vail, Colorado, atop a mountain Nate once skied. Ceci was the maid of honor.  

Lynn knew Nate too. He and Abby had dated since 2020. When Abby learned of Nate’s death, she thought, “I have to get to Lynn.”  

When the couple planned their wedding, they agreed Nate had to be part of it.  

Abby wrote a passage for the pastor to recite before they exchanged vows.  

“It is a tradition in the Stratton family to light a yellow candle in honor and remembrance of Nate Stratton,” Abby said through an Episcopalian priest. “Today, we light this candle to remind us that Nate is with us today and is smiling down on us all. Abby and Lynn are lucky to have him watching over them as they enter into their marriage today and every day going forward.” 

“As Lynn lights the candle, we will take a moment to remember Nate and all those loved ones who are not with us today.” 

A cloudy afternoon dispersed and the sun shone over nearby mountain peaks as the Stratton family shared their first moment of overwhelming happiness since Nate died.  

In pictures, Abby said, the mood looks high to an outside observer. All over the venue were bright, shiny faces. But look closer, and one might see tears in the eyes of those who knew Nate.  

*** 

As the Strattons fought for justice for their own child, they also fought for other families experiencing similar losses. In the wake of Nate’s death, the Stratton family connected with Denise Niblick of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.   

MADD was founded in 1980 by a group of grieving mothers, all of whom lost children to drunk driving incidents. But the organization's purpose and reach have since spread far beyond mothers.  

Niblick got involved with MADD after losing her sister, Lisa, at 26 to an underage drunk and drugged driver. She uprooted her life as a high school teacher to become an advocate and assistant to those who had similar experiences.   

“Losing a built-in best friend or losing somebody in an out-of-order death impacts, I would say, almost every single decision that you make from that day on,” she said in an interview with the Indiana Daily Student.  

Niblick sat in on meetings with the family’s prosecutor. She checked in on anniversaries and milestones. On the day of the sentencing, she sat in the back with their civil attorney. She held her tongue when she felt people testifying on Howard’s behalf were trying to infringe on the Strattons' grieving process.   

“That was very hard because I just wanted to stand up and shout and say, ‘You do not get to tell someone how to grieve,’” she said.   

Niblick and MADD have spent decades working to end drunk driving and help fight drugged driving, most recently advocating for mandatory implementation of technology to detect and prevent impaired and distracted driving before it happens.  

Some pieces of tech, like a built-in breathalyzer that won’t allow the car to start if it detects alcohol on the driver’s breath, already exist. MADD estimates making this technology mandatory could save upward of 10,000 lives. 

But red tape and bureaucracy have slowed the process, with the most headway being a commitment to developing adequate technology by 2027. The most recent reports from the NHTSA estimated a slight decrease in drunk driving-related fatalities in 2023, but when talking about preventable deaths in the thousands, changes of tens hardly make a dent.  

“We’re an action family,” Brad said. “All I hear is words and not action.”  

The Strattons opened their own doors to people impacted by impaired driving deaths, sometimes meeting with and advocating for those with their own stories of loss.  

Abby pioneered a fundraiser for Breakthrough T1D, a nonprofit organization researching Type 1 diabetes. It raised more than $130,000 in Nate’s name, one of the largest single-incident donations to the cause ever.   

Brad and Elizabeth said they didn’t want any personal donations on behalf of Nate, instead asking donors to send their money to Breakthrough T1D and MADD.  

“I'm not doing this coverage for anything other than to create awareness for this community and to create a legacy for Nate,” Brad said.   

 ***

“Those of us who knew and loved Nate Stratton, particularly his family, live with a type of guilt every day and will for the rest of our lives. As his sister, guilt lives in my heart very differently since he was killed,” Abby said in an impact statement to the court. “I feel guilty every day for smiling at strangers on the street, for laughing at a joke, for having hopes, dreams and ambitions for the future.” 

But three years later, Abby and those who knew Nate choose to remember him as he was, and as he will always be. A best friend, a brother, a son. The prankster who could always light up a room. The hero who would save everyone else on a sinking ship before thinking of himself. 

Through his family, and through the verdict of a case that shook Bloomington, Nate will live forever. In the hearts of all who read his story. In the minds of lawmakers looking for ways to prevent accidents on the roads.  

And maybe, hopefully, he lives somewhere in the gut feeling of the next would-be drunk driver who decides to take an Uber. 

Elizabeth Stratton wrote the letter below when Nate was in kindergarten. She sealed it in a time capsule for Nate to open someday. The right time to dig up the capsule didn’t come before September. 

Nate never got to read it. 

Dear Nate, 

Today is Tuesday, May 27th, 2008. You are only a few days away from your 6th birthday and are so excited for it to arrive. Every day you beg me to open one of your presents early and every day I tell you to be patient a little longer. After you have stomped off in a huff, you return to me asking for hints to your presents. I have given you silly hints that have nothing to do with your gifts. My fear is that you will figure out your gifts from the hints and spoil the surprises. I’m not even going to write what you are receiving in this letter because you are such a good reader and you might find this letter before it is sealed in the time capsule.  

Let me share with you what everyone you meet thinks of you. I have friends, teachers, grandparents, coaches and other parents telling me all the time what a happy, kind and funny boy you are. All of this I already know but it is wonderful to see others appreciate what a beautiful person you are inside and out. That being said, you can be pretty stinky to Abby and Ceci and they can be the same to you. Your relationship with your big sisters is exactly what it is supposed to be –- antagonistic and loving at the same time.  

I love that at five years old you know and love all of your grandparents, cousins, and even your great grandparents, Mimi and Pa. I wonder what path you will choose to follow in school and extracurricular. You love school. Your kindergarten year with Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Weaver has been perfect. Your reading is wonderful and you love math. You have done a really great job this year. Your favorite sport is skiing. You also love basketball, soccer, tennis and swimming. You are pretty good on your bike and excellent on your razor scooter! You love to dance and sing. You have just discovered Kung Fu and are very excited to take your first belt test. You also have an appreciation for girls! You recently came home from school and told me you used the “G” word. Ceci and I looked at each other in bewilderment. Ceci asked you if the word was God and you answered no. After a few guesses we gave up and asked for the word. Your answer was GIRLFRIEND. You professed your love for a little girl named Taylor and even had a picture drawn of the two of you inside a heart.  

One of the things I love the most is that you still love to snuggle with me at bedtime and insist on tickles every night. You are a prankster with me and the rest of our family. Your all time favorite food is PANCAKES. You would eat pancakes for every meal if you could. You lost your first tooth just 3 weeks ago. It was very loose and barely hanging on by a thread. I warned you to be extra careful at lunchtime so you wouldn’t swallow it by accident. Surprise! You came home to share that the tooth fell out at lunch. You professed that you absolutely did not swallow it! UNFORTUNATELY you searched the floor and all over with Mrs. Weaver and still could not find it. Where could it have gone?!? 

My hopes for you in the future are that you find happiness within yourself. I want you to stay a confident and driven individual. It is important that you are always compassionate towards others. I will always love you with all of my heart and soul. You have been given a wonderful base of love, family and education to build the rest of your life on. I can’t wait to see who you have become by the year 2020 and beyond.  

Love,  

Mom