Pennsylvania woman sentenced in DUI crash that killed 2 troopers and a pedestrian

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This article was published 23/11/2023 (1043 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A woman has been sentenced to decades in prison after pleading guilty to driving under the influence and then striking and killing two state troopers and a pedestrian on an interstate in Philadelphia last year.

Jayana Webb, 23, of Eagleville pleaded guilty Wednesday in a Philadelphia courtroom to three counts each of third-degree murder and homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence in the early morning crash in March 2022. She was sentenced to 27 1/2 to 60 years in prison.

District Attorney Larry Krasner called it “a just resolution of one of the most shocking incidents of vehicular violence in recent memory.”

Police said Troopers Martin Mack III and Branden Sisca were trying to get a pedestrian to safety from the southbound lanes of Interstate 95 near south Philadelphia’s sports stadiums when a vehicle “traveling at a high rate of speed” struck all three. The troopers and the pedestrian, identified as 28-year-old Reyes Rivera Oliveras of Allentown, died at the scene.

Defense attorney Michael Walker told The Philadelphia Inquirer that Webb, who is seven months’ pregnant, will be allowed to remain out of custody until she gives birth in February and will be allowed some time after that to bond with the child before she reports to prison.

Walker said his client expressed deep “sorrow” and apologized to the families of the victims in court.

“She had hoped that at some point in their lives they would be able to forgive her,” he said. “She will never forgive herself. She suffers greatly because of what she did and recognizes that she is punished and has ruined a large portion of her life,” Walker said.

Earlier court hearings focused on Webb’s blood alcohol content and her activity on social media, including a post earlier in the morning that said she had been stopped “doing 110 in a 50″ mph zone. Authorities said the troopers who stopped her were abruptly redirected south to help Oliveras, who was apparently trying to cross the highway. As they tried to get him off the road, Webb tried to pass the parked state police SUV at high speed, hitting all three, authorities said.

Her blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit and the active components of marijuana were also found, prosecutors said.

Mack, 33, enlisted in November 2014 and had been assigned to the Philadelphia barracks since 2015. Sisca, 29, enlisted in February of last year and graduated in August. Col. Robert Evanchick, the state police commissioner, said both “had bright careers ahead of them” before “their lives were senselessly cut short.”