Carly Rousso Speaks About Killing Little Girl, Getting Hooked on Drugs

Carly Rousso, who is scheduled to be sentenced next month for driving over and killing a 5-year-old girl while high in Highland Park two years ago, gave a tearful, anguished talk to a group of Chicago teenagers about the dangers of drugs earlier this week.

“Drugs, what they do is destroy people,” she says, according to video from NBC Chicago of the talk at a Chicago church. “They destroy lives. They destroy families, friendships. They are doing the devil’s work.”

You can watch the videos here.

Rousso, 20, spoke about being adopted and one of the few Mexicans in Highland Park led to bullying and depression, which led to a strong desire to simply fit in. She started smoking pot at 12, then moved onto prescription drugs at 14 after she was mauled by a pit bull and received 450 stiches in her face and skull.

By 15 she’d moved onto harder drugs and at 16 she was sent away to rehab.

She recounts Labor Day 2012, when she decided to huff a cleaning product and drive down Highland Park’s Central Avenue. She came to in her car and asked what happened. When police arrived, “I got up and said, ‘I did this. Will you take me away,’” she recalled.

She learned the next day that the girl, Jaclyn Santos-Sacramento, died.

“I don’t know why I’m still alive. Why it was Jaclyn instead of me,” she said.

She decided that she would spread the message of the dangers of drugs and driving while intoxicated as a way to find some meaning after the accident.

“Today I live for her,” she said. “I live my life for me and I live my life for a little girl who can’t, who won’t get another birthday, who won’t be able to grow up.”