Ronald and Bonnie Hough carried their son's college diploma to the Christian Reformed Church cemetery in Munster where they buried him.

"We took his diploma to the cemetery to tell him how proud we were of him," Bonnie Hough said, tears welling up in her eyes. "It was the most horrific day of our lives."

Stephen Hough was buried four days before his college graduation. The ashes of the 26-year-old's fiancee, Amy Bartelmey, were buried in his arms.

The couple and well-known defense attorney Garry Weiss died in an April 29 accident following the actions of a drunken driver the system couldn't keep off the road, a Times investigation shows.

Mario Cadena careened his Jeep Grand Cherokee on the wrong side of the road through a stop sign at the intersection of 101st Avenue and Randolph Street, causing a three-car crash.

Weiss, 53, of Crown Point; Hough, 26, of Merrillville; Bartelmey, 25, of Hobart; and Cadena, 30, of Crown Point, all died of blunt force trauma with massive internal injuries, Lake County Coroner David Pastrick said.

Cadena's blood-alcohol level was 0.17 the night of the fatal wreck, Pastrick said. Indiana's legal limit is 0.08.

At the time, Cadena already was a twice-convicted drunken driver whose license had been suspended seven times since 2002, Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles and Lake County Superior Court records show.

And being an illegal immigrant, Cadena never should have been issued a driver's license to begin with, state officials concede.

Repeat offender

Cadena was charged for an alleged drunken driving accident in 2001, a year before he ever applied for a driver's license, state and Lake County court records show.

He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of reckless driving and was sentenced to six months of probation, five days of community service and drug and alcohol counseling, the plea agreement states.

In return, Lake County prosecutors dropped the misdemeanor charges of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated and operating a motor vehicle without ever receiving a license.

Cadena's second alleged drunken driving case came less than two years after the first one settled. He again pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation, alcohol and drug counseling, and his driver's license was suspended for three months, the plea agreement in that case states.

Both drunken driving arrests were the result of car accidents.

In all, Cadena was slapped with 13 traffic citations -- including two drunken driving arrests -- dating back to 2001, Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles records show.

He had overlapping driver's license suspensions between 2002 and 2005, state records show, and his license expired in January 2007.

But Cadena, who was an illegal immigrant, should never have been issued a license at all.

BMV issues

Cadena finagled a driver's license in 2002 from a former Gary branch of the BMV without a valid U.S. Social Security number, BMV spokesman Dennis Rosebrough said.

Despite multiple infractions on his driving record, officials never noticed a Social Security number was missing.

"We weren't doing that level of checking then," Rosebrough said.

The BMV bulked up its security in the past six years as a result of multiple scandals involving illegal immigrants who secured driver's licenses and state identification cards by bribing BMV employees, Rosebrough said.

Three BMV employees were charged and later convicted in Marion County for bribery and official misconduct, according to the Marion County prosecutor's office.

And three Chinese nationals were convicted in the early 2000s in federal court in Hammond for either obtaining state identification cards or steering others to do so, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Last November, the state transitioned to a direct online process provided by the Social Security Administration to verify Social Security numbers. That work was done by a third-party vendor in the past.

Rosebrough said all of the agency's records were purged and are accurate as of November 2007.

Advocates for change

But the BMV improvements do little to ease the hearts of Ronald and Bonnie Hough.

The couple said they are concerned prosecutors and courts are in such a hurry to dispose of cases that they forget their duty -- keeping the streets of Indiana safe.

They advocate for the courts to use ignition interlock systems, which require periodic breath tests from drivers convicted of drunken driving offenses. The system requires a breath test not only at the time of starting the vehicle but also randomly during the drive, which discourages attempts to have someone other than the driver submit samples.

Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter said his office is "overwhelmed" by alcohol-related offenses.

He said there is merit to the use of ignition interlock, but the systems are used sparingly because of expense.

"Many times, the interlock system is used as an alternative to sentencing someone to jail," he said. "It's not utilized as often as it could be or should be."

All parties in the case acknowledge Cadena's dismissal of court orders and BMV directives resulted in his death and the deaths of Hough, Bartelmey and Weiss.

"He was definitely the heart of our family," Ronald Hough said of his son.