Girl Shown Photos of Dead Father in School

Sept. 14, 2005 -- -- A 12-year-old Knoxville, Tenn., girl was traumatized when she was shown gruesome photographs of the car crash that killed her father during a health class presentation by police to educate youngsters about the dangers of drunken driving, the girl's mother said.

Marla Higginbotham, the girl's mother and a drug awareness educator for Think Drug Free America, questioned whether it was appropriate to show the graphic photographs to such young children.

The graphic pictures that were shown to a Holston Middle School health class by a Knoxville Police Department officer contained images of the badly mangled body of the girl's father after he was thrown from a car during a collision.

"I disagree with photos, live body images, and that's only for elementary and middle," Higginbotham told ABC News affiliate WATE-TV in Knoxville. "Now when the kids get older, you have to use age appropriation, and that's a different story, but when we're talking about elementary and middle school, they're not mentally, I don't think they're developed enough."

Knoxville Police spokesman Darrell DeBusk told The Associated Press that the presentation was made at the request of schoolofficials, and that there have been no complaints in the past.

"It really drives home the point that [drunken driving] happens in this community," DeBusk said.

School officials said the police officer read the man's name -- William F. Cabbage -- before showing the pictures to the students and requested that anyone who knew the victim leave the room.

Higginbotham said the family did not know that the crash that killed the girl's father involved alcohol and her daughter did not recognize her father's formal name -- but she realized she was looking at her father after the officer making the presentation told the students the date and details of the crash.

"She literally just dropped in my arms and I just stood out there, for what seemed like forever and just weeped," Higginbotham said of the moment her daughter told her about the incident.

She said the girl's teacher didn't know the man in the graphic pictures was the father of one her students.