With the weight of two children's deaths on their shoulders, the Bowens are struggling to move on with their lives.

Life for the Bowen family of Buellton was just starting to return to normal after the death of son Sean in a 2000 ATV accident, just days before his 15th birthday, when 19-year-old Rebecca died in a Christmas morning collision in 2006 on Highway 1 north of San Antonio Road, near Vandenberg Air Force Base.

“It felt like being kicked in the gut,” said Jennifer James, 27, Fran and Randy Bowen's surviving child.

James has a 6-year-old son, named Sean after the uncle he never knew, but whom James said they talk about “all the time.”

Catherine Brink, 50, of San Francisco, the driver of the car that collided with the truck Rebecca Bowen was riding in, pleaded guilty in Santa Barbara County Superior Court to a misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter in July. Three 19-year-old men who were in the truck with Bowen were injured in the collision.

The California Highway Patrol has reported that Brink tried to pass the truck and drifted onto the grass median, causing her to lose control. Her car swerved back onto the highway, according to the CHP, and hit the left rear side of the truck, which overturned in the center median.

Brink was sentenced to 480 hours of community service, was ordered to pay restitution and her driver's license was suspended for a year, said the case prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Von Nguyen. Brink must complete the 480 hours of community service during her three years on probation, Nguyen said.

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The process of rebuilding their lives, the Bowens said, was hampered by their displeasure with the rate at which Brink had been serving her community service.

Although Brink was convicted of a misdemeanor and not a felony, the Bowen family places great importance on her serving her entire sentence.

“I want it done so we can move on, and it's very important to me because she took my little girl away from me,” Randy Bowen said.

“It was slow starting out,” Nguyen said of Brink's service, but she had completed 97 of the 480 hours by April 18.

Nguyen said that from July 23 to Oct. 22, Brink completed no community service hours, and had done 10 hours by Dec. 13.

“And the judge let her go, didn't say anything,” at a court appearance, Fran Bowen said.

“Seemed like the longer time has gone, that he almost forgot about what had happened and why he had given her this punishment,” Bowen said of Superior Court Judge Edward Bullard in Santa Maria.

The prosecution can file a probation violation if time is not being served in a case, Nguyen said. In the Brink case, a probation violation was filed at one point, but was taken off the court's calendar when Brink started to serve her time, she said.

At an April 21 hearing in Santa Maria, Bullard said he would like to see Brink complete at least 30 hours of community service a month.

The next review date in the case is scheduled for July 30.

In addition, the Bowens have filed a civil suit against Brink and General Motors.

Randy Bowen said he was more satisfied with Bullard's recommendation that Brink complete 30 hours a month.

“It was a whole different attitude this time,” he said.

The Bowens felt their presence in court at each of Brink's hearings helped ensure her service hours were being done.

“If we're not there, the extra pressure isn't on everybody to make it work faster and keep it going,” said Fran Bowen.

“We're not going away until she completes it,” added Randy Bowen after the hearing on April 21.

“We knew it was an accident,” Fran Bowen said during an interview at the couple's Buellton house. “And we didn't want the woman to go to jail. So, we had said originally, don't send her to jail if that comes up. We don't want her to go.”

Brink brought in a letter to court saying she had medical problems and couldn't do her community service, Fran Bowen said. “So she was trying to get out of doing it from the beginning.”

“And I just know that if it was me that it happened to in that way, I would have been killing myself to get it done with and to pay a punishment.”

Senior Deputy Public Defender Kevin Carey, Brink's attorney, said “she's doing what she's supposed to do.” The case is done, he said. She has entered a plea and been put on probation.

Carey said some of the initial delay in Brink's serving her community service time was due to her disability, which he declined to elaborate on.

“She's doing it much quicker now,” he said.

Carey said he didn't think the Bowens were being fair to the judge or to Brink.

He said he didn't see anything in the initial plea deal that specified the rate at which her service must be done.

“They just wanted reviews to make sure she's doing it, and she is doing it,” Carey said.

The Community Service Work Program, offered through the county probation department, reports the offender's successful or unsuccessful completion of work hours to the court or to the probation department.

Participants pay application fees and do their time at approved work sites. Clients receiving public assistance may be able to have their application fees waived.

James Voysey, assistant public defender for Santa Barbara County, said that misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter offenders are usually law-abiding people.

Misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter is generally a situation where the vehicle accident was caused by a traffic infraction and doesn't involve “moral turpitude,” he said.

“Most of these cases, people do successfully complete probation,” Voysey said.

Gene Martinez, chief assistant district attorney for the North County, said he thinks court-ordered community service is basically a good idea. He said community service makes an impact, and can be more of a deterrent than some of the other tools available, as participants are actually doing work.

They will “thereby be forced to think about what they've done,” he said.

“It needs to be handled properly and in the appropriate cases,” Martinez added.

He said that as far as he knows, there are not typically problems with people completing their service. Martinez said also that he hadn't noticed a particular problem with lengthy lulls in community service being carried out. If the completion of community service lingers too long, Martinez said, it could take away from its effectiveness.

Court matters aside, the Bowens have been taking comfort in the love shown for their popular daughter in the wake of her death.

About 12 of Rebecca Bowen's friends have gotten tattoos in her memory, and her friends set up a fund to raise money to buy a headstone for Sean and Rebecca's graves at Ballard Cemetery.

Rebecca's room, which used to be Sean's room, is still decorated almost exactly as she had it while she was alive.

Her prom dress hangs on the outside of the closet door, and her collection of employee name tags from different businesses, many with ties attached, remain in the room. Photos of Rebecca with friends form a collage over her bed.

Fran Bowen said they haven't yet figured out what to do with their daughter's belongings.

“Part of you doesn't want to throw anything away, just because (it feels) like you're throwing away part of them.”

Samantha Yale can be reached at 739-2159 or syale@santamariatimes.com.

May 25, 2008