The story out of Cobb County Monday morning was a shocker, to say the least.

After arriving home in what must have been a drunken stupor early Sunday morning, 21-year old John Kemper Hutcherson woke up later that day to find out that his companion of the evening before had been killed. And Hutcherson was responsible.

According to Cobb County law enforcement officers, Hutcherson was driving home with his passenger, Francis “Frankie” Daniel Brohm, when the truck left the road and hit a utility pole guide wire. Apparently Brohm had his head out the window when the truck struck the wire causing him to be decapitated. Oblivious to the tragedy, Hutcherson regained control of the truck, continued to his home and went inside to bed.

A man taking a morning stroll with his one-year old daughter discovered Brohm’s body around 8 a.m. Now I’ve seen some drunks in my day, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody too drunk to know that he’d just killed somebody. This is more than a tragedy. It’s frightening.

After the accident at the guide wire, Hutcherson traveled another 12 miles to his neighborhood home. Who knows how many close calls there were? Who knows who else might have been struck and knocked into the bushes and simply hasn’t been found yet. This guy could theoretically have gone on a 12-mile drunken killing spree with his headless buddy strapped in right beside him.

We know that didn’t happen, as the only problem with the 1992 pickup was that the passenger side mirror was sheared off right before the wire met Brohm’s neck.

The question now is what do we do with John Kemper Hutcherson? Is he actually responsible for his friend losing his head? It’s not like he held his friend’s head out of the window and then intentionally drove into the wire.

In fact, officers would not say why Brohm had his head out of the window. But we can guess he was not just letting the wind blow through his hair. When traveling and one gets sick, the courteous thing to do is deposit your vomit out the window.

For the record, according to the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Hutcherson has been charged with first-degree vehicular homicide, driving under the influence, failure to stop at an accident with death or injury and failure to maintain lanes. Sunday evening he was a guest at the Cobb County Jail, being held on $10,000 bond.

That’s not enough. For the answer to the question is of course Hutcherson is responsible. He should not have been behind the wheel of a vehicle and we’re lucky the body count is no more than one. Twelve miles is a long way to travel with your eyes closed.

Hutcherson definitely needs to spend some time in a little room thinking about what he has done. Or more importantly, what a better decision could have prevented.