Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Calif woman gets 6 years for fatal texting crash

From AP News
Sat Apr 4, 1:02 pm ET
REDDING, Calif. – A woman who crashed into a line of stopped vehicles while text-messaging on her cell phone has been sentenced to six years in a California prison for killing a woman in one of the vehicles.

Deborah Matis-Engle was sentenced Friday by a judge in Redding, Calif.

Investigators said Deborah Matis-Engle was speeding and text messaging when she slammed into the vehicles stopped at a construction zone in August 2007.

Shasta County prosecutor Stephanie Bridgett said the 49-year-old woman had paid several bills by cell phone in the moments before the crash.

She was in the middle of one of those transactions when she struck a vehicle that burst into flames, killing 46-year-old Petra Winn.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Stotter said he will appeal.

4 comments:

clintpatty said...

This is the kind of precedent that we need to set here. I emailed Rex last year about their opportunity. He did not take advantage of it. I guess I'm more for law and order when you kill someone.

clintpatty said...

Oh and I don't think that prison was necessarily the best option. Much better to have community service to influence people to quit doing this. And change the community and individual set precedent on how much attention is required for driving. But some amount of attention should be legally required.

Unknown said...

This is exactlly what I was talking about! People in this country act as if driving is an something free of any responsibility or attentivness

marshmallow said...

has anyone told any city officials about this blog? I mean, it showcases a lot of stuff that they could draw ideas from