(CNN) -- The three mothers hail from the same province in China, but they'd never met until a reckless driver in central Ohio killed their only children.





From left, Sun "Zoe" Yan, Bian "Jack" Jin and Xue "Jo" Bing were students at Urbana University in Ohio.





Two years later, the women wade through a cultural morass, struggling with American laws and language as they work to recoup the tens of thousands of dollars they borrowed to educate, and bury, their children.





They've also lost their pride and possibly their future. In China, a family's future often rides on the education of its youngest member, and parents routinely mortgage the present for a brighter retirement.





The three mothers have no good news for friends and relatives who stop by their homes in northeast China, sometimes for hours, asking for their money. The mothers face the cultural shame of not being able to repay them, and many of their creditors don't believe them when they explain they've received little compensation for their losses.





"Even after I die, I could not close my eyes," Cai Tie Juan said, describing her stress and exhaustion through a translator.





On March 8, 2007, Cai's son, Bian Jin, 27, better known to his American counterparts as Jack, was returning from a spring break shopping trip with Sun Yan and Xue Bing, both 24.  Learn more about students »





According to the Dayton Daily News, Bian was driving. Sun, aka Zoe, and Bian's girlfriend, Xue -- whose friends called her Jo -- were in the backseat of Bian's Ford Taurus. They were trying to get back in time for Sun's 6:30 p.m. shift at a local Chinese restaurant in Urbana, Ohio, where the three attended graduate school.





Witnesses told the newspaper that several cars were waiting at a traffic light when Jason Skaggs, then 34, approached the intersection of Urbana and Moorefield roads. Skaggs crashed his blue Chevy Tahoe into a Buick Skylark at 98 mph (about 158 kph), went airborne and sandwiched Bian's Taurus between the Tahoe and a gold Chrysler, witnesses and police told the paper.





The Taurus was reduced to a ball of crumpled metal with tires. Bian, Sun and Xue were killed instantly. Four others, including Skaggs, were injured. See photos of wreck, trial from Dayton Daily News





Skaggs said he had had a seizure before barreling into the intersection, but the jury didn't buy the defense and found him guilty of aggravated vehicular homicide. During the trial, the media uncovered a litany of driving violations committed by Skaggs, including a speeding ticket he received for driving 91 mph in a 65-mph zone just weeks before the wreck.





Skaggs also had been jailed for aggravated vehicular homicide in the past, after he had passed a car in a blind curve in 1994, killing a 79-year-old mother and her son, the Daily News reported.





A judge in August sentenced Skaggs to the maximum 34 years in prison.





The students' parents wonder how Skaggs had a license to begin with. He'd already killed two people and had no insurance. And if epilepsy played a role in the wreck, it only bolsters their belief he shouldn't have been driving in the first place.





"Why could somebody let this happen?" Xue's mother, Sun Chun Zhi, asked through a translator. "Obviously, he had a history of driving recklessly and had violated many traffic laws."





Chinese laws would've never let someone like Skaggs drive, and more frustratingly, they say, the Chinese government would've stepped in with financial help if this had happened in their homeland.





Conversely, it is a Chinese law that has been most devastating. Because the world's most populous nation has for 30 years enforced a one-child-per-couple policy, Bian, Xue and Sun Yan had no siblings, so the families' prospects for the future were crushed in a Ford Taurus at the intersection of Urbana and Moorefield roads.





"When you raise a child in
Where were the children originally from? Who had a vehicular homicide conviction? What conviction did Skaggs have?
China, Jason Skaggs, aggravated vehicular homicide.
question: Where were the children originally from?, answer: China, | question: Who had a vehicular homicide conviction?, answer: Jason Skaggs, | question: What conviction did Skaggs have?, answer: aggravated vehicular homicide.