CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Janice Nicolich

victim of drunk driver (1935–1996)

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 15, 2025
Entity authorityQ6154316 ↗
Source-derived summary

Janice Winblad Nicolich (August 9, 1935 – June 28, 1996) was an American woman who was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. During the trial Nicolich's daughter wrote that she had forgiven the drunk driver and urged that the court do likewise. The subsequent court case led to a Nebraska Supreme Court decision on the issue of leniency in drunk driving deaths. The story was part of an The Oprah Winfrey Show and the book The Road To Forgiveness: Hearts Shattered by Tragedy, Transformed by Love.

Birth and marriage

Janice Ann Winblad was born on August 9, 1935, in Astoria, New York, to Anthony LeRoy Winblad (1912–1970) and Maria W. Zorovich (1912–1993). Janice Winblad married Joseph Anthony Nicolich on May 15, 1954, in Astoria. She was Roman Catholic for most of her adult life and raised her children Catholic. Sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s she became a member of the Bethlehem Assemblies of God Church in Valley Stream, New York.

Drive to Salt Lake City

Joseph and Janice Nicolich were on their way to their son's wedding in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 28, 1996. They were on Interstate 80, near Sidney, Nebraska, in their Chrysler Town & Country van.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Janice Nicolich” is victim of drunk driver (1935–1996). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Janice, Nicolich and victim, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1935, 1996, 1912, 1970—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1935-08-09. For this dossier, Janice, Nicolich and victim is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “victim of drunk driver (1935–1996)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6154316. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 1996, 1912 and 1970.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Janice Nicolich”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Janice Nicolich primary sources, Janice Nicolich archive and Janice research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Janice Nicolich”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Janice Nicolich” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.