Dalton and Margie Peaden just want justice. The Fountain couple's son Frankie, 33, was killed in a traffic accident that never should have happened.

Frankie was killed Jan. 23 when a BMW driven by Danny Ellis Vick, 31, of Tarboro crossed the center line on N.C. 43 outside Greenville and collided with the Toyota Peaden was driving to work about 7:30 a.m. Peaden was a plumber at East Carolina University.

Vick was released on parole in March 2007 after completing 13 years of a 20-year sentence for breaking entering and other charges.

He had tested positive for drug use in screenings after his release – and was arrested Oct. 1 at a Jacksonville Taco Bell on charges related to cocaine possession. (He is scheduled to be in Onslow County court to face those charges on Monday.)

Why was Vick not behind bars?

Since our jails and prison are literally full, the state usually directs parolees who fail the drug screenings into treatment, according to Robert Lee Guy, director of the state Division of Community Corrections, which oversee inmates paroled from state prisons.

You may be familiar with Guy's name. You may have seen it in other stories about parolees accused of crimes. Parolees are the suspects in the shooting death of Eva Carson, the University of North Carolina student body president.

Apparently, Vick was in treatment. It did not take. State Highway Patrol tests showed Vick was impaired due to cocaine and methadone when he crashed into Peaden.

Emergency rescue workers told Peaden's parents that at the scene of the wreck, Vick was hollering for them to leave Peaden and help him. Vick had minor injuries.

Peaden died at Pitt County Memorial Hospital later that morning.

More than 500 people came to the visitation at the funeral home and 300 attended the funeral at Farmville's First Baptist Church, spilling out into the fellowship hall where they listened to the service on speakers.

Peaden, an Edgecombe County native, was well known and well liked. The 1961 Tarboro High School graduate liked to cook, hunt and fish, and sing. He had worked every day since he was 16. He was a member of the Sharpe Point Volunteer Fire Department. He was happily married.

"He was good boy," said his aunt, Judy Sessoms of Tarboro.

Immediately after the wreck, Frankie's wife Kristen asked folks to sign a petition "to demand the events leading up to and causing the death of Frankie Peaden ... be fully investigated and that the role of convicted felon Danny Ellis Vick in causing Frankie' death be fully explored."

She obtained more than 3,500 signatures.