TORRINGTON – Johrdan Jaymes Stone was born May 22, 1993, in Colorado Springs to Stephanie (Stone) Anderson and Dominic Novits. He moved to Torrington when he was 10 years old. 

Johrdan attended Torrington High School and graduated in 2011. He was active in choir and drama. He played football and participated on the debate team. Johrdan was artistic and he enjoyed drawing. He was awarded the Hathaway Scholarship, and he had a dream to become a chef. He was excited about attending culinary school with his friends. 

He was a son, a brother, a grandson and a friend.

“Johrdan was the family jokester,” Jerry Merrick, Johrdan’s bonus dad said. “He was just the kid that would make friends with anybody. It didn’t matter who it was, it didn’t matter for what, he was just the light in the room.”

Once moving to Wyoming, Johrdan became a member of a blended family. He was survived by one sister, Caitlyn, and handful of brothers, Christopher, Nickolas, Brandon and Adam. 

“Johrdan was a good big brother,” Johrdan’s mother, Stephanie said. “He was a good brother, at all times. He had real special relationships with his siblings, and he took good care of everybody. He was a caretaker. He would drop anything to do anything for anybody. If someone was alone, he would go make sure they weren’t alone. He was smart.”

Johrdan had a special bond with his little sister, Caitlyn, and the two were almost inseparable, Stephanie explained. 

“In almost all of our family pictures, he’s either holding her or they’re looking at each other or they’re looking for each other,” Stephanie said. “It’s really rare that they are not.” 

In May of 2011, Johrdan turned 18. He celebrated his special birthday on the day he graduated high school. Less than one month later, he was involved in a car accident. Johrdan had been drinking with Bryan that evening. 

Prior to Johrdan’s death, the family had recently welcomed Bryan, into their home. Bryan was a close friend of the family, and someone who had grown up alongside Johrdan. 

Johrdan had changed once Bryan came to live with him and his family in Wyoming, the family explained.

“Johrdan and I did get along. We never argued,” Stephanie said. “But he started acting differently once Bryan got here. We were working towards the opposite. We were hoping Johrdan would be the good influence.”

But Bryan was troubled. He had struggled with drugs and alcohol and had been in trouble multiple times with the law according to family. To their knowledge, Johrdan didn’t drink.

Stephanie recalls the weekend of June 20 well. It was Father’s Day weekend, and Jerry was on the road trucking. 

“Johrdan was getting ready to move out,” Stephanie said. “He was going to go to Texas with a friend. They were going to go to culinary school. He was moving out the next day. He was mad that I had asked him to babysit his siblings one more time, because I didn’t want to ask my parents. So, we argued, and I didn’t understand what was happening. I know I didn’t tell him I loved him because we were angry, which is such a stupid reason. He died before we could fix it,” she said.

Stephanie and Jerry had talked to their children about alcohol. They didn’t keep alcohol in their home.

“The person that made the decision to drink and drive lived in our house. We had taken him in,” Stephanie said. 

Johrdan, still angry from the disagreement with his mom began drinking with Bryan earlier that evening, according to Stephanie. 

“I know Bryan did what he did. I’m just sad because Johrdan was such a good person, and the person that killed him didn’t even care. He didn’t show any remorse and lied about the whole thing,” Stephanie said.

“That had been the first time [Johrdan drank] and he had gotten alcohol poisoning. Instead of calling somebody for help, Bryan put him in the vehicle Johrdan used and drove drunk,” Stephanie said.

Bryan left the town of Henry, Nebraska and didn’t stop at the stop sign before entering Highway 26 at the Wyoming-Nebraska state line.

“Bryan lost control,” Stephanie said. “He had put Johrdan’s head out the window in case Johrdan threw up so there wouldn’t be any evidence. Then he hit the sign, and it nearly decapitated him (Johrdan). 

Johrdan died from trauma sustained in the crash according to the autopsy from the Goshen County Coroner’s Office.

“Bryan didn’t make him (Johrdan) take the drink. He drank it himself, Johrdan did,” Jerry said. “The problem lies when Johrdan got into trouble. I don’t believe Bryan did everything he could do before he got in that van. He wanted to be the hero. There were many people he could have called who would have been there. There was no reason for him to put Johrdan in the car, coax him in the car, or however he got him there,” Jerry explained. “When they got in the vehicle, that’s when everything went too far.”

Caitlyn was five and Brandon was seven at the time of Johrdan’s death.

“It was pretty devastating, and it still takes its toll,” Stephanie said. “Jerry and I still talk a lot not just on the days that are important, but if we are having rough days.”

“At the time I had my own trucking company,” Jerry said as he remembered the day, he got the call. “I had left a day early to try to get a jump on my run. To this day it’s really hard to be where I need to be.”

“Johrdan just should have known better,” Jerry added, “That’s just another thing that we have to think about every day. What could we have done differently?”

Before Johrdan’s death Stephanie and Jerry agreed to send Bryan back to California and had gotten him a plane ticket back.

The family struggled to stay together after they lost Johrdan. He was like the glue that held everyone together. Stephanie and Jerry divorced, but they have grown to be best friends and both now happily remarried.

“This is the aftermath of Johrdan’s death,” Jerry said. “This just set everything off. There was just too much for us when Johrdan died and left. We were at each other’s throats. There was no getting over it, we both felt so guilty, I think, and our outlet was being horrible to each other.” 

“It was at least a year before we could talk with any civility,” Stephanie said. 

“When she can’t get through the day or I can’t go on through the day, we call each other,” Jerry said. “We are each other’s support because really nobody understands. Unless they have been through it, they don’t understand, and they don’t get it. Her and I have been through it together and we get it. I don’t want anybody to understand. I don’t want anybody to ever have to go through this.” 

“Even with our spouses, we have married people that are respectful. He (Jerry) is like my best friend,” Stephanie said.

Stephanie had hopes of starting a local Mother’s Against Drunk Driving (MADD) chapter. 

“MADD doesn’t have a chapter around here, so we don’t do that,” Stephanie said. “We talk to people around us instead. We definitely talk to people around us. We tell them be safe and there are other choices. Be safe and get a designated driver.” 

Alcohol changes a person.

“It’s like anything,” Stephanie continued. “You’re invincible, you think it’s everybody else until it’s you. We didn’t even keep alcohol in our house, they had it provided.” 

Despite a vast majority of the community being helpful and supportive the family faced unneeded scrutiny. This would make it far more difficult for the family to cope with the devastating loss.

“The other thing that was really hard, community,” Stephanie said. “People not knowing you, standing around afterwards, listening to people talk about what terrible parents he must have had. People saying, ‘shouldn’t leave alcohol around your kids.’ It felt like they were pointing the finger at us. People were saying horrible things.”

“We’d stand right behind the people, listening to them talk, and they’d have no idea who was behind them,” Jerry said. “We had a few first-hand experiences where we had to listen to that. They don’t get it and they don’t understand.”

“Bryan’s mom and I are still best of friends. She didn’t do anything,” Stephanie said. “She loved Johrdan.” 

Stephanie expressed over the years it has been a struggle to maintain her relationship with Bryan’s mom. Between the public scrutiny and the guilt that has been left behind, keeping a bond was sometimes difficult. 

“What Bryan did was not her fault,” Jerry said. “I cannot imagine being in her shoes, I can’t, because it is a whole different kind of hurt and I cannot imagine. I know some of the grief she got and it’s not right, it’s not fair. It’s hard enough. She lost basically her kids too.”

“She’s a good person. She’s my family. She’s our family,” Stephanie added. 

“He [Bryan] he went to jail for five years, prison for five years in Nebraska,” Stephanie said. “I went to his first parole hearing, it was just, he still didn’t care. He still did not care. They even told us, if you wouldn’t have come, we would have released him. He still hasn’t even apologized.”

Since Johrdan’s death, Stephanie, Jerry and their spouses continue to keep an open line of communication with their children. 

“Talk about it (drinking). Be open. Let them know, it doesn’t matter where we are in our relationship, you need me, I’m here,” Stephanie said. “You messed up, you drank, whatever but don’t put yourself at risk. Don’t put others at risk. Don’t be so focused on there being trouble, think about there being safety and people get mad, but they get over it,” she said. “But don’t drink and drive, you can’t fix that.” 

Bryan Lee Bloom, 18, was arrested on suspicion of DUI. His blood alcohol level was .14 percent, above the legal limit at the time being .08. He was sentenced to five to eight years in the Nebraska State Penitentiary. He served five years for the death of Johrdan Stone. 

“Johrdan could get me laughing,” Jerry said. “He was probably the only one that could get me laughing, making fun of me.” 

“Johrdan has three babies named after him,” Stephanie said, smiling. “I think it says a lot with people naming their kids after him. Russ (Stephanie’s husband) and I are actually Godparents to one of them.”

People in the community, classmates of Johrdan, still approach and support Jerry and Stephanie. They are often remembered of the impact Johrdan’s ray of light has brought to others.