Car Accident Involving Close Friends Results in Fatality of Classmate

On the night of November 6, 1963, two days after her 17th birthday, Laura Bush ran a stop sign and struck another car, killing its driver. The victim was her close friend and classmate Michael Dutton Douglas. By some accounts, Douglas had been Bush's boyfriend at one time, but she stated that he was not her boyfriend at that time but rather a very close friend. Bush and her passenger, both 17, were treated for minor injuries. According to the accident report released by the city of Midland in 2000, in response to an open-records request, she was not charged in the incident. In 2000 Laura Bush's spokesman said, 'It was a very tragic accident that deeply affected the families and was very painful for all involved, including the community at large.' In her book Spoken from the Heart, she said that the crash caused her to lose her faith 'for many, many years'.