Ethan Couch’s mother Tonya faces jail time

A trash bag stuffed with old clothes, a mattress cover, half-empty bottles of cleaning products, a rusting lawnmower — these are the items that affluenza mom Tonya Couch considers worth saving as she prepares for a possible jail sentence.

The mother of America’s most notorious drunk driver was spotted taking what remains of her possessions to a storage unit in Forth Worth, Texas, as she gets ready for the next stage of her life.

Then she popped into a Pizza Hut for a lunch of a 10-inch pie, downed with a large soda. She sat alone, constantly glancing at her phone before going on to a nearby Sonic Drive-In to order take-out.

It’s all a far cry from the money-soaked life Tonya led as the wife of a well-connected millionaire before her failings and those of her husband Fred hit the headlines.

They were dubbed ‘the worst parents ever,’ and Ethan Couch, their then-teenage son who killed four people in a drunken 70 mph crash in 2013, became the poster boy for coddled irresponsibility.

Tonya faces charges of money laundering and hindering the apprehension of a felon. Ethan is had 720 days of jail time added to his 10 year probation charge after he was extradited to the US after he fled to Mexico 

Ethan’s aunt said: ‘The strange thing is that Ethan was always very responsible. He would always wear his seat belt, he didn’t speed and he got home on time. But then he started drinking and living by himself’ 

Tonya and her ex-husband were dubbed ‘the worst parents ever’ after Ethan killed four people in a drunken 70 mph crash in 2013, becoming the poster boy for coddled irresponsibility. Pictured: Ethan’s wrecked truck after the fatal crash

Tonya’s sister and Ethan’s aunt Carla Thompson (pictured) exclusively told DailyMail.com about her sister’s lifestyle change and how Ethan plans to marry his girlfriend after his release

But Tonya and Fred had to share the blame. They had let the boy drive to school when he was just 13. They had done nothing to punish him when he was caught drunk in his truck with a naked 14-year-old girl passed out beside him. They had frequent public screaming matches, catching Ethan in the crossfire.

Now, Tonya is paying the price for the years of over-indulging the son she described as her ‘protector’ from age nine, as her free-spending life and all that came with it is no more.

Gone is the 4,000-square foot party home set on six acres in the Fort Worth suburb of Burleson, complete with pool, sauna and a stunning great room with its 100-year-old reclaimed hardware floor.

Gone is the waterfront cottage from where Tonya and Fred would launch their boat or Jet Skis onto picturesque Eagle Mountain Lake.

Gone is the easy access to money that allowed her to withdraw $30,000 — no questions asked — so she could whisk Ethan and the family dog off to Mexico.

Now Tonya doesn’t even have enough money to pay her lawyer’s fees, her sister Carla Thompson told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.

All Tonya Couch has left is her signature flame red hair and unwavering love for the son that is so deep she risked everything to smuggle him out of the country in a vain bid to keep him out of prison.

‘I don’t want to talk about my life now, nobody understands it,’ Tonya told DailyMail.com outside the one bathroom house she has been sharing with a friend in the remote Dido section of Fort Worth, Texas.

In preparation for her possible jail sentence, Tonya put a trash bag with old clothes, a mattress cover, half-empty bottles of cleaning products, a rusting lawnmower into a storage unit

The 50-year-old Texan mother lives a vastly different life than the one of wealth before, telling DailyMail.com: ‘I don’t want to talk about my life now, nobody understands it. Pictured: Tonya spotted going to Pizza Hut in Fort Worth on November 1 

Tonya’s life is such a far cry than what it had been that now Tonya doesn’t even have enough money to pay her lawyer’s fees, her sister Carla Thompson told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview. Pictured: Tonya, her mother and her sister Carla (l-r)

Instead of the sprawling estate she used to comfortably reside in, Tonya shares a one bathroom house with a friend in the remote Dido section of Fort Worth, Texas (pictured)

‘I’m moving out,’ she added. ‘It’s a secret where I am going.’

But she may not be able to keep her living arrangements quiet for too much longer. 

Tonya, 50, is due in court in January to face charges of money laundering and hindering the apprehension of a felon, both arising from her 1,300-mile drive over the border to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. She faces up to 10 years behind bars.

She could even miss celebrating her son’s release if she is sentenced before Ethan gets out of prison on March 30.

Tonya said she’s not allowing herself to fret over going to prison herself. ‘I don’t think about it,’ she said.

But she still worries about her son, now 20, and the life he is living in the Tarrant County Correctional Center in downtown Fort Worth.

‘He’s struggling,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘Who wouldn’t be?

And despite his lenient sentence of less than six months for each life he took, she feels he was hard done by.

ETHAN COUCH ‘PLANS TO MARRY’ HIS SECRET GIRLFRIEND AFTER HE IS RELEASED FROM PRISON

Haleigh Shields, 20, is Ethan Couch’s loyal girlfriend, his aunt told Carla Thompson told DailyMail.com exclusively

Ethan Couch has a woman waiting for him when he is released in March after serving two years for the drunken crash car crash that ended in four deaths.

Twenty-year-old Haleigh Shields has stood by him throughout his troubles, which included him running away to Mexico with his mother when he thought his freedom might be at risk, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively.

And now Couch’s aunt believes wedding bells may be around the corner for the man who became the poster boy for parental coddling and irresponsibility.

‘She has stuck by him all along, she’s been with him for years,’ Carla Thompson told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.

‘I don’t think it will be long after he gets out of prison that they get married. 

Couch’s aunt believes wedding bells may be around the corner for the couple after Ethan is released from prison in March

‘She loves him very much and can’t wait for him to get out so they can start their life together.

‘She is a very nice girl who is good for Ethan and keeps him grounded.’

Shields, 20, who comes from the Fort Worth suburb of Keller, Texas, describes herself as a dog groomer at the PetSmart in Watauga, Texas, on her Facebook page. 

But staff at the store says no-one of that name currently works there. 

‘She has stuck by him all along, she’s been with him for years,’ Ethan’s aunt Carla Thompson told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview

Messages left on her phone and her Facebook page were not returned. 

Couch — inmate number 0879903 — is due to be released from the Tarrant County Correctional Center in downtown Fort Worth, Texas on March 30. 

Twelve days later he will celebrate his 21st birthday. 

‘He was essentially accused of murder at 16,’ she said, adding: ‘But there was no intent on his part to kill anyone, no malice.

‘Yes, he had been drinking, he’s never denied that, but there was no intent.’

Ethan Couch was living alone at the time of the accident. Tonya and Fred were staying in another house they had bought and made occasional visits to see how their only child was getting on. 

On Saturday, June 15, 2013, Ethan and two friends stole three cases of Miller Lite from a Walmart for a raucous drunken party at the family home. 

Shortly after 11pm, one of the female guests discovered she needed a tampon, so rather than leave his friends at the home, he loaded all eight remaining guests into his red Ford F-150 to drive to a gas station. 

He had driven less than a quarter of a mile along Burleson Retta Road when he smashed into a Mercury Mountaineer that was pulled over after its tire blew. 

The SUV’s driver, 24-year-old chef Breanna Mitchell, was killed instantly as were Hollie Boyles and her 21-year-old daughter Shelby and youth minister Brian Jennings who had all come to Breanna’s aid.

Tonya and her ex-husband Fred were dubbed ‘the worst parents in the world’ by a local magazine after Ethan’s crash

Before fleeing to Mexico with Ethan and her dog, Tonya told her ex-husband Fred that he would never see either of them again. Pictured: Tonya dropping off her belongings in an unit 

Thompson (pictured left with Ethan as a baby) said: ‘I have no idea what she was thinking when they ran off to Mexico. It was the worst decision of her life. She lost everything’ 

Ethan suffered a broken neck and one of his passengers, Sergio Molina, was paralyzed after he was thrown from the truck.

Couch’s blood alcohol level was 0.24 percent, three times the Texas limit. He was also four years, nine months and 26 days below the legal drinking age.

At his trial, Judge Jean Boyd gave him a slap-on-the-wrist penalty of 10 years probation after psychologist Dick Miller testified that Ethan had been so protected by his parents that he didn’t know right from wrong.  

Prosecutors had sought a 20-year prison term. 

Miller coined the phrase ‘affluenza’ to describe Couch’s condition. Instead of being taught the golden rule, Miller told the court that Ethan had been taught: ‘We have the gold. We make the rules.’ 

In a lengthy article on the case, D Magazine dubbed Fred and Tonya Couch ‘The Worst Parents Ever.’

Ethan’s sentence was increased to 720 days in prison after he and his mother Tonya fled to Mexico shortly before Christmas 2015. 

A video of him at a beer pong party was posted online at a time when he was banned from drinking alcohol.

Rather than let her son explain the incident to his probation officer, Tonya took the law into her own hands. She withdrew $30,000 from her joint account with Fred and told her husband he would never see either of them again.

She then drove Ethan and Virgil, the family’s Sarloos Wolfhound, to Mexico’s Pacific coast, where they rented an apartment and tried to blend in with the thousands of American tourists who visit the area.

In December 2015, a video of Ethan surfaced online of the teen at a beer pong party. At the time he was banned from drinking alcohol. Tonya withdrew $30,000 and took Ethan to Mexico

She rented an apartment (pictured) in the Pacific beach resort of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. They tried to keep a low profile but were busted after a ping from Tonya’s cellphone alerted authorities to their whereabouts because they dialed Domino’s Pizza for a take-out order 

Ethan regularly frequented Puerto Vallarta’s strip clubs where he snorted cocaine and ordered lap dances from topless girls. One night he spent so much at the Harem club (pictured) that he had to be escorted home by security guards who roused Tonya from her bed to pay his bill

Ethan regularly frequented Puerto Vallarta’s strip clubs where he snorted cocaine and ordered lap dances from topless girls. One night he spent so much at the Harem club that he had to be escorted home by security guards who roused Tonya from her bed to pay his bill.

But the mother-and-son fugitives were busted after a ping from Tonya’s cellphone alerted authorities to their whereabouts because they dialed Domino’s Pizza for a take-out order.

The irony was that they had a prepaid ‘burner’ phone with them. If they had used that, they could have gone undetected, revealed Carla Thompson, Tonya’s sister.

‘Why they used her phone to order the pizza I don’t know,’ Thompson, 49, told DailyMail.com at her home in Ardmore, Oklahoma.

‘It was probably habit. You’re thinking you’re going to order pizza tonight. Would you worry that that was going to be your downfall?’ 

‘I have no idea what she was thinking when they ran off to Mexico,’ added Thompson. ‘It was the worst decision of her life.’ 

‘She lost everything, all her jewelry — and that was a lot, she didn’t get it back after the arrest. She lost her son, she lost her money, she lost the dog. 

‘She lost her truck which is still down in Mexico. She lost everything.’

‘The dog is probably the saddest thing of all,’ Thompson added. ‘She loved, loved, loved that dog.’

Virgil — a cross between a female European wolf and a male German shepherd — went missing when Ethan and Tonya were arrested and has never been found. 

At the time of the arrest, Tonya’s attorney told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Tonya’s main concerns were for her son and the family pet.

Following Tonya’s return to the United States on December 30, 2015, she was released on $75,000 bail and banned from drinking alcohol. But without her husband to support her she needed to work.

Tonya was let go from her first post at a trailer company due to bad publicity and then got a job working at the Honky Tonk Women Bar in Azle, Texas.  

The irony was that they had a prepaid ‘burner’ phone with them. If they had used that to order pizza, they could have gone undetected, revealed Thompson, Tonya’s sister. Pictured: Ethan with his hair dyed black after he is returned to the US 

Breanna Mitchell (left), a 24-year-old chef, and youth minister Brian Jennings were killed in the crash. Mitchell’s car had blown a tire and Jennings had came to her aid that fatal night 

Hollie Boyles and her 21-year-old daughter Shelby, had just finished a movie and went outside to help Mitchell after they heard a commotion. They were also killed in the crash 

Ethan’s friend Sergio Molina (pictured) was paralyzed after he was thrown from Ethan’s truck in the horror accident on June 15, 2013

Ethan’s blood alcohol level was 0.24 percent, three times the Texas limit. He was also four years, nine months and 26 days below the drinking age. Pictured: Ethan’s car after the crash 

But when a picture of her tending bar appeared online, the judge in her case ordered that she should not possess alcohol so she had to quit. 

‘She has been working for an electrician she met at the bar just to get a few dollars together,’ her sister said.

She is still in contact with her husband but they are not together, added Thompson. ‘Fred did bring her down when our dad passed away in September last year,’ she said.

‘But he just dropped her by, he didn’t stay, he knows he’s not welcome. Fred’s just not a nice man. He thinks he can get away with anything and treat people anyway he wants.’

The couple had a history of abuse with cops called to their home on numerous occasions. They divorced in 2006 when Ethan was nine and he later remarried.

‘Fred thinks he can splash his money around and people will do what he wants them to do — and a lot of times they do,’ said Thompson.

‘He is one of these people who just loses his temper very quickly.’

Thompson’s husband Tommy, a truck driver, said: ‘I only met Fred once. I’m not sure what it was but I just did not like him.’

But Thompson said her sister Tonya ‘really loved him at one point.’

She said: ‘Once you get used to a certain lifestyle it is hard to go back and she got wrapped up in that — a lot of abusive situations are that way, once you get on that roller-coaster you can’t get off and you start thinking it’s the norm when it’s not.

‘Now though he has become a bit of a pariah. He doesn’t have the respect that he had before because everyone has seen that he wants to buy his way out of everything and buy Ethan’s way out of everything.’

Thompson said Ethan had always been a polite, sensitive boy, but his parents treated him more as an equal rather than their child.

Following Tonya’s return to the United States on December 30, 2015, she was released on $75,000 bail and banned from drinking alcohol. Without her husband to support her she needed to work, then got a job working at the Honky Tonk Women Bar (pictured) 

After a picture of her tending bar appeared online, the judge in her case ordered that she should not possess alcohol so she had to quit. Now, Tonya is working for an electrician that she met at the Honky Tonk bar 

Thompson said of her sister: ‘Once you get used to a certain lifestyle it is hard to go back and she got wrapped up in that — a lot of abusive situations are that way, once you get on that roller-coaster you can’t get off and you start thinking it’s the norm when it’s not’

She said: ‘His mom loved him very much. His dad loved him too, but he just let him do whatever he wanted to do and say whatever he wanted to say. I heard him cussing up a storm when he was three or four and they didn’t punish him.

‘They let him drive around before he was old enough to get a license because Fred thought laws didn’t apply to him.

‘The strange thing is that Ethan was always very responsible. He would always wear his seat belt, he didn’t speed and he got home on time.

‘But then he started drinking and living by himself.’

If Tonya is sentenced she could miss her son’s 21st birthday after Ethan gets out of prison on March 30

Tonya’s sister said: ‘His mom loved him very much. His dad loved him too, but he just let him do whatever he wanted to do and say whatever he wanted to say’. Pictured: Tonya leaving court to be fitted with an ankle monitor in January 2016

Pictured: Makeshift cross at the site of the crash that Ethan Couch tragically caused in 2013 

Thompson described the Couch family dynamics as ‘very bizarre.’

‘I don’t know where it came from because certainly Tonya and I weren’t raised like that,’ added Thompson who grew up with her sister in Paris, Texas.

Thompson said Ethan has a hard life ahead of him because of the publicity surrounding his case. ‘He always wanted to be a doctor,’ she said. ‘He was very smart as a child, and he could have done it.

‘He would still like to be in the medical field,’ she added. ‘But whether he can fulfill his dream of becoming a doctor with all this behind him, I don’t know — probably not.

‘When he gets out he will have to lie low for a bit, Tonya has told me the family still gets death threats.’

‘Ethan’s my nephew and I do love him but I know that had it been my son who was involved it would not have been the same outcome and that is not fair,’ added Thompson.

‘I wouldn’t have been able to buy him out and even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. You have to pay for what you do.’