RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A woman in Virginia has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for driving her car into a crowd outside a nightclub in Virginia, killing a woman and injuring several other people.
Shiauna M. Harris pleaded guilty earlier this year to the fatal June 2019 crash that killed Shanice Woodberry, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. But at her sentencing on Monday, she still insisted that she fled the scene not knowing whether she hit anyone that night.
Prosecutors said the trouble began when a fight broke out in a lounge in Shockoe Bottom, a neighborhood in Richmond, and spilled into the street outside.
Woodberry, 22, was not involved in the fight and didn’t know Harris. She had been standing outside the lounge when Harris plowed into the crowd with a car and killed her, the newspaper reported.
Prosecutors played videos from the scene during the sentencing that show Harris turning around the car and accelerating before hitting two women, in addition to Woodberry. One of them spent several days in a coma and suffered a brain injury, authorities said. A man was also injured, and another woman was touched by the vehicle.
Harris pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, felony hit-and-run and two counts of malicious wounding earlier this year. But she told Richmond Circuit Court Judge Beverly W. Snukals on Monday that she had fled in fear after someone threatened to shoot her on the street, and didn’t know as she fled that she hit anybody.
Prosecutor Christine Cestaro disputed those claims. She said Harris stopped in front of the lounge when she turned around her car and exited the vehicle for about 20 seconds.
“That doesn’t sound like someone fleeing in fear, but someone driven by rage,” Cestaro said.
Harris apologized to Woodberry’s family during the sentencing.
“I’m very sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to take your daughter from you. I didn’t mean to change your whole lives. It has affected mine.”
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