The family of 22-year-old Destiny Betts, who died three months after the crash, said they are not seeking public attention surrounding the tragedy in a statement provided to @OllieConnolly:
“Destiny’s passing was the result of a tragic accident that occurred several years ago. While the loss remains incredibly painful for our family, we have worked hard to find peace and move forward. At this time, we are not seeking public attention surrounding this tragedy and respectfully request that our family’s privacy be honored. We also wish Mr. Bain the best as he continues his life and career.”
I had been in contact with Betts family lawyer. It was their wishes that any story I was working on not be published until after the draft.
Here is a statement from the family (same one in Ollie's article + 2 paragraphs)
The family of the young girl who passed didn’t want the news to even come out. But you have edit people looking for clicks and trying to harm Bain chances in the draft smh 🤦🏾♂️
If you're using someone's death to get trolls off, you probably need to reflect on your relationship with college football. It's just a game, it's never that serious.
Nasty work running that story now when teams been made aware, and investigated the incident. Have the family of the lost being reminded of it as well smh
The family of Destiny Betts wishes Rueben Bain Jr. the best in his career, and calls her passing a “tragic accident” while wishing for no further public attention:
This piece of shit spent the afternoon TRYING to run a smear campaign on Bain. You are the definition of a fucking loser when this case has been dismissed and no charges filed. Yet you wait till right before the draft to try and smear this kid. Which school did this little cunt go to ?
So let me get this straight...
"Ollie Connolly" comes out with a hit piece on his Substack against an athlete whose name he can't even be bothered to even spell correctly -- ELEVEN DAYS before the biggest day of said athlete's life, based off a crash report stating that the athlete was going BELOW the speed limit (55 in a 60) at the time of the crash, and the police didn't suspect said athlete of being under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Subsequently, the reckless driving charges were dropped and the family of the victim told "Ollie" that they wished Rueben Bain Jr well and didn't want any further attention brought to what they called a "tragic accident".
All of which Mr. Connolly conveniently leaves out of his clickbait post on X.
Absolutely disgusting behavior by a so-called journalist.
By no means am I diminishing the severity of the terrible tragedy, but the wording here reads as if this is recent news to NFL teams. It’s not. This has been known and vetted for several months.
By no means am I diminishing the severity of the terrible tragedy, but the wording here reads as if this is recent news to NFL teams. It’s not. This has been known and vetted for several months.
@OllieConnolly The family literally said “we are not seeking public attention” and asked for privacy. They even wished Rueben well.
Posting it as sensational draft-industrial-complex “news” anyway is a shameless attention grab. A family’s grief is worth page clicks to this guy
@ABC@DavidMuir Didn't realize how biased journalists have become until today's opening segment. The fashion those first stories were presented in is wild for a major news outlet. Don't care but how can one access/digest objective journalism when it's so transparently subjective?