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.
She did the crime so she should do the time. She took a persons life for being irresponsible. You can't be driving and texting at the same time, especially in a construction zone. She is lucky none of the workers were killed as well.
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Comments: 22
May the woman be an example for others.
You know, they should make cars that drive themselves.
You know, they should make cars that drive themselves.
they do! we can't afford them yet.
it angers me when people text and drive! My own daughter has done this... with me in her car! (not any more!)
If you don't fill your tires up properly & one of them blows out & you hit another car & kill the driver, do you think YOU deserve to go to jail for over 6 years? After all, it was your own fault your tires weren't inflated correctly. If you turn your head to say something to your spouse, friend, or child in the other seat & hit somebody & they die, is it also a requirement of justice that YOUR life be completely destroyed as well?
Have some compassion, people. Learn lessons, have empathy. I just don't understand why people are always like "She should have gotten a longer sentence! She deserves more!" and the comment that is weirdest up there is about how another person who caused a similar accident at least had the "decency' to die as well. Joke or not, that's just rude!
Why is 6 years not enough? Six years in jail is a LONG time. And in terms of jobs, family, life after jail? What is this person going to have? Nothing. Her life is ruined also. Isn't that enough for people? Exactly how many years does it take, then?
My example was just that... an example. Of another accident that can occur because of someone not paying attention to something. So low tires can be overlooked.. what about briefly looking away to talk to someone? Or calm down an unruly child? Or grab something off the seat? Or any of the other myriad things people do in the car every day that make them stop paying attention to the road, even for a second? We focus on cell phones as though they're the only things in the car that distract us from driving... but that's not true. I feel like if someone caused an accident like that because their toddler was bugging them & they turned their head for a second to talk to them, or grab something from them, etc... people would be more sympathetic to that person.