Friend of Nathan Gatchell discusses news of drunk driver responsible pleading guilty

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - A friend of Nathan Gatchell, the man killed in a hit and run in April, said Saturday Gatchell's loved ones are healing slowly, but the news of a guilty plea won't let them forget what happened anytime soon.

On Friday, Anissa Northrup, 33, pleaded guilty to drunk driving and failing to stop after an accident resulting in Gatchell's death.

On the morning of April 15, Gatchell and a group of friends were walking back from a concert Northrup hit Gatchell along the 1600 block of Broadway.  Northrup's minivan was found less than two miles away from the scene.

"When you plan a life with somebody, or you plan on having a friend in your life, it's a huge slap in the face when they're not there anymore," Emily Didrick, a friend of Gatchell, said.

Didrick and Gatchell became friends during their junior year at Northrop High School.  She heard the news of Gatchell's death within hours after it happened.

"It's just so sad that they chose responsibility, and she didn't," Didrick said.  "Our lives are forever changed because she decided to not be responsible."

Among Northrup's charges included a misdemeanor charge for driving a vehicle with a blood alcohol content of .15 or higher.

"How can you be that intoxicated and get behind the wheel of a car," Didrick said.  "I don't understand how you can make that kind of choice."

Didrick said Gatchell's friends and family got together in August to celebrate Gatchell's birthday.

"That was really hard because his entire family was there," she said.  "It's been a very rough road for his family.  Nate was the glue that kept that family together."

Didrick learned of Northrup's guilty plea Friday.

"I was happy that she admitted she was wrong," Didrick said when asked her thoughts on the guilty plea.  "Obviously nothing she says is going to really alleviate anything that we've all gone through."

Didrick and Gatchell's other friends and family will now wait for a judge to determine Northrup's fate.

"My good friends had to watch their good friend die in the middle of a street," Didrick said.  "No judge is going to be able to give a sentence that adequately makes up for what we lost."

Didrick said her and Gatchell's bond grew when both of them decided they wanted to be teachers.  Didrick added Gatchell was supposed to student teach at Bishop Luers High School this fall.  She now has a picture of her long-time friend on her desk at school to help remember her friend.

"It's there to remind me to treat every day like a gift," she said.  "Give a 100 percent because that's what he would have done as a teacher."