Steve Sweet always hoped the day would come when the man allegedly responsible for his sister's death would finally face the law.
"I think my first words was, 'What?'" Sweet said. "I was just tickled to death after all these years, five years and four months, they had finally located him."
Harlin Alvarez was arrested in an Atlanta airport while trying to leave the country for his native Guatemala. Police say he is an illegal immigrant who has been dodging the law for years.
"A lot of people way back always said that they'll probably never catch him," Sweet said, "that he's gone back to Guatemala. Or he's got a new name, and they'll never find him. But I felt like, sooner or later, he would always turn up."
Police say Alvarez was driving a red pickup truck in September of 2008 when he crossed the center lane, hitting Samantha Roach and her friend Billy Lynn Bell head on as they rode on their motorcycle. Alvarez fled the scene.
Roach left behind her children, a husband, siblings and her parents, one who could not bear the grief.
"My mom died 19 months after the accident," Sweet said. "She was never the same after Sam died. To me, he killed both of them."
While bittersweet, Alvarez's arrest is the start of a long-awaited journey. But forgiveness will take even longer.
"That will never happen," said Steve Sweet Jr., Roach's father. "If he would have stuck around, I might have been able to, but for him to run, no. He doesn't deserve to be forgave," he explained.
Sweet Jr. identified his daughter in the crash after he drove past. He says the memories are still fresh, and he thinks about her daily. After years of wondering where Alvarez escaped to, they find solace in the fact that he can run no more.
"I feel good at the fact that he's going to come back and finally have to face us," Sweet said. "Being that he was a coward and run and wouldn't face us at the time, Now, he won't have a choice but to face us, face the judge and the jury."
The Sweets still keep in contact with Billy Bell's family, consoling each other from time to time. "It's a struggle for them as well," Sweet said. "He had two daughters."
Alvarez is currently awaiting extradition to Warren County from Georgia. His brother and friend served two years in prison for helping him leave town. After the sentence, they were both deported to Guatemala.
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