GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A drunk driver on a rural northern Kent County road ran a stop sign killing a 58-year father of five, grandfather of 17 who was raising two young adopted boys. The intoxicated driver, Michael Ray Hoogewing, is now serving a six to 20-year sentence.
The crash happened in November and the sentencing happened earlier this month, but the family of David Cliff say their memories and the impact of his loss will remain forever.
“He made you feel like you were family whether you were family or not,” said Cliff’s wife, Brenda Cliff.
David Cliff left his Greenville home before 6 a.m. on Nov. 9, 2016 heading to work and driving his 2003 Grand Am south on Lincoln Lake Road. A 2006 Saab traveling west on 6 Mile Road failed to yield to a stop sign.
“How many times did he have close calls that were not reported?” said Dustin Johnson, David Cliff’s son. “He could have blown that stop sign 100 times just not knowing it was there even though he lived with two or three miles of the area.”
Police would determine that 32-year-old Hoogewind was driving the Saab and his blood alcohol content (BAC) was .23 — nearly triple Michigan’s legal limit of .08.
“If it was the first time, it would be easier to take, but it wasn’t,” Brenda Cliff said.
State records show Hoogewind was convicted of drunken driving in 2011. After that, a breathalyzer installed in his vehicle detected a high BAC three times that year. The breathalyzer was removed from his car in 2013.
“I don’t see a whole lot of bad in him, I think it was just bad choices,” Johnson said.
Hoogewind would plead no contest to drunk driving causing death and then he would be sentenced to six to 20 years in prison.
“Six years is an awful long time to sit and think about what you did,” Brenda Cliff said.
After raising his own children, he and his wife Brenda adopted two boys who needed a home.
“He truly was a very good man,” Brenda said. “But we had our dreams.”
His wife says she does not hate the man who killed her husband.
“What my two sons, younger sons — the 7- and 8-year-old — keep saying is I hope Michael doesn’t do this again, I hope he doesn’t hurt another family and make them go through what we had to go through,” she said.