John O'quinn died today along with his longtime driver Johnny Lee Cutliff. I have met O'Quinn in eh elevator and said hello to his driver in the parking lot on a few occasions. they were good people.
SUV crash kills prominent lawyer John O’Quinn
Colleagues mourn; accident also leaves a passenger dead
By DALE LEZON, PEGGY O'HARE and MARY FLOOD
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Oct. 29, 2009, 5:46PM
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Chronicle file
The speed of John O'Quinn's vehicle has not yet been determined.
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MORE ON JOHN O'QUINN Photos of well-known Houstonian
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1998 profile of the attorney
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Prominent Houston lawyer John O’Quinn was the man driving a sport utility vehicle that lost control on the rain-slicked surface of Allen Parkway and crashed into a large tree, killing him and his passenger this morning, based on preliminary information gathered by crash investigators, police said.
The passenger was identified as Johnny Lee Cutliff, 56, of the 5300 block of Bacher. Neither man was wearing a seat belt, said the police sources, who asked not to be identified.
How fast O’Quinn, 68, was driving has not yet been determined because investigators must pull the vehicle’s crash data computer, or so-called "black box," to determine that information. But witnesses told police he appeared to be driving between 50 and 60 mph, a Houston Police Department spokeswoman said. The speed limit there is 40 mph.
The black late-model Chevrolet Suburban was westbound in the 1900 block of Allen Parkway at a high rate of speed when the accident occurred about 8 a.m., officials said.
Police said it appeared that the SUV veered to the left, jumped a curb and careened over a grassy median, crossed the eastbound traffic lanes and hopped another curb onto a second median before smashing into the tree on the south side of Allen Parkway. Tire marks across the first median show the path of the hurtling SUV.
The slick road could have contributed to the crash, said Houston Police Department Lt. L. J. Satterwhite. Persistent drizzle was in the area about the time of the crash.
The front end, hood, roof and passenger side of the Suburban were badly crumpled. The windshield was shattered and the engine appeared to hang from the chassis. The battery, air filter and other debris were scattered on the Allen Parkway service road about 20 yards west of the crash site.
The SUV appeared to have wrapped around the trunk and the force of the impact uprooted the nearly 30-foot tall, leafy tree, which was one of several lining the second median. The Suburban’s rear came to rest on top of the uprooted trunk, and the tree was cut down so the Suburban could be towed off.
The driver’s side air bag, splashed with what appeared to be blood, was deployed, as well as others around the vehicle.
Investigators and work crews were still at the crash site more than three hours after the wreck. Under light drizzle, workers sawed all the limbs from the tree and then pulled the SUV away from the scarred trunk. Then they dug out the tree, piled the limbs and trunk into a container truck to be hauled away.
Houston lawyer Levi Benton, a former judge, said he ran into O’Quinn at Hobby Airport shortly after 7 a.m. this morning. The two lawyers were side by side in the security line headed to the gates.
"He said he was going to a mediation in San Antonio," said Benton, who was headed to Dallas himself. Benton said O’Quinn looked older than when he last saw him but otherwise seemed fine.
"He had his full strength. He shook my hand. He laughed. He had that great smile. He was John," said Benton, who was shocked to later hear O’Quinn for some reason had not gotten on the plane, only to be killed in a car crash on Allen Parkway.
Houston attorney Dan Cogdell said he was in Hobby Airport at 9:30 a.m. today and did not yet know of O’Quinn’s death when he heard an operator repeatedly paging O’Quinn, telling O’Quinn to report to a Southwest Airlines gate for departure. The operator paged O’Quinn for about 30 minutes, Cogdell estimated.
"It was very eerie," Cogdell said. "It seems to me they were holding a plane for him, which Southwest (Airlines) doesn’t usually do ... I thought it really strange that he would be flying commercial."
Cogdell said he later learned of O’Quinn’s death after his own flight was canceled and he returned to his office to see an announcement from the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association on the group’s list serve.
"Everyone is devastated,’’ said Neil C. McCabe, a lawyer who worked with O’Quinn as he watched officials clean up the scene. "John not only was the head of the law firm but a person who took care of all of us and we are going to miss him very much."
Though O’Quinn was "a lightning rod for controversy," he was always a gentleman, Cogdell said.
"In his day, he was an incredibly gifted trial lawyer," Cogdell said. "John was a controversial figure, but he was always a gentleman to me, and gave a lot to our community. Everybody’s just in a state of shock, even criminal lawyers."
Houston police said this morning's wreck is the sole fatal crash on Allen Parkway so far this year.
HPD officials recorded no fatal wrecks on Allen Parkway in 2008, 2007 and 2005. One fatal crash occurred in 2006 and six in 2004.
Chronicle reporters R.G. Ratcliffe, Brian Rogers, Mike Glenn and videographer Meg Loucks contributed to this report.
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