MySpace Page Leads To Texas Fugitive

Eleven years ago, Marilyn Datz' 18-year-old daughter, Lindsey Ann Brashier, was killed in a drunk driving accident in downtown Austin, Texas. Brashier's friend and classmate, Evelyn Mezzich, was at the wheel. A third friend was paralyzed in the 1996 one-car accident.

Tests revealed that Mezzich had a blood alcohol content of .13 percent and she was arrested and charged with intoxicated manslaughter. But before she could stand trial and while she was out on bail, she fled to Peru with her family, out of the reach of Texas authorities, who lost track of her.

Mezzich is now 29. She's married, pregnant and says she is a psychologist. She has a lot of friends and still likes to party. She still lives in Peru, but if Marilyn Datz has anything to say about it, Mezzich will soon be back in Texas.

Datz didn't really intend to find Mezzich, but the young woman made it simple when she decided to flaunt her wonderful life on a MySpace page. Now efforts are underway to have her extradited back to Austin to stand trial for the death of Datz's daughter.

"I had a -- a mother's gut feeling, but about in May of 1997 I told the D.A.'s office in Austin that I had a feeling that she would jump bail," Datz told Harry Smith from Houston, where she lives.

Datz only learned about the details of Mezzich's life this week, after an Austin reporter discovered the MySpace page and brought it to her attention.

"I felt every emotion that you could possibly feel hearing about it and the information that was on there," said Datz.

Mezzich's MySpace page is typical -- it has pictures of her husband, her family, a recent wedding and nights out on the town. There's a copy of her sonogram video and there's even a motto on the page: "Life is too short to bitch ... so live it up!"

At the time of the accident, the extradition treaty between Peru and the United States did not cover Mezzich's crime. But that changed in 2003. Now, U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, told the Houston Chronicle this week that extradition papers are being drawn up by the State Department.

Does Datz think justice will ever be served? "I'm the perpetual optimist, and I've been working on doing this for so long that, you know, I certainly hope so. Realistically, I don't know. You know, I have to keep my feet firmly planted here and say I really don't know," she said.