‘Unsung hero’ died in fatal Columbus marijuana-DUI crash, family says at sentencing

Steven Duffey risked his existence as a armed service intelligence contractor doing work in war-torn places of Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, before he returned to the states to function as a lengthy-haul truck driver and settled in Pensacola, Florida.

He came dwelling to Columbus in 2019 for Thanksgiving, and appeared forward to paying out time with his family.

“I’m headed your way,” he told his mom that Nov. 26, and people were the previous text she listened to from him, since he never ever built it.

He was riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle south on Moon Highway that afternoon when a northbound 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee turned still left in entrance of him, at the entrance ramp to the J.R. Allen Parkway’s westbound lanes.

Stability cameras at a nearby lender department recorded the ensuing collision, capturing video clip so graphic that prosecutors did not want to engage in it in court docket Tuesday as the Jeep’s driver pleaded responsible to initially-diploma homicide by motor vehicle.

“It’s like an explosion when the impact transpires,” said Assistant District Lawyer Robin Anthony. Duffey, 56, was hurled from the bike as its entrance tire jammed beneath the Jeep, and died at the medical center from in depth trauma, she claimed.

Law enforcement browsing the Jeep found that the driver, 21-yr-aged Maddelyn Everton, had a bag that contains seven marijuana “blunts,” or cigars into which the drug was stuffed. Later assessments showed she had the drug’s lively component, THC, in her blood.

Moreover vehicular murder, she was also charged with driving less than the impact of marijuana, misdemeanor possession of marijuana and failing to yield the appropriate of way.

Pleading guilty Tuesday in Muscogee Superior Courtroom, she was handed a 15 yr sentence — five a long time in jail and the relaxation on probation — and purchased to pay out $13,306 in restitution.

She was sentenced as a initial offender, indicating that if she effectively completes her probation, her document will be expunged.

‘An unsung hero’

Everton is 24 years aged now. Standing just before Superior Court docket Choose Gil McBride, she listened although a victim’s advocate go through statements from Duffey’s household, hoping to explain their reduction.

“The place has misplaced an unsung hero,” wrote brother John Duffey, who served alongside his sibling in lands with names “most people today below can’t pronounce.”

Steven Duffey’s counter-insurgency work saved lives, the brother mentioned: “The region has dropped an unsung hero… He was a truck driver following he was a warrior.”

Yet another sibling, David Duffey, wrote that Steven Duffey was “a jokester and the existence of any vacation social gathering,” who experienced termed him 20 minutes prior to the crash, stating he seemed ahead to their catching up at the family supper.

“In his lifestyle, he has helped people today turn out to be friends in its place of enemies,” the brother wrote. “He manufactured you really feel like you were the most significant individual in the earth.”

A sister, Pam Baker, wrote that Steven Duffey was “logical and scientific and intellectually curious,” and no one can replace him in her everyday living. “It does not assistance that I have to push by that intersection where he was killed every single working day,” she added.

Everton experimented with to tackle the courtroom, but started to cry, so defense attorney Susan Henderson read through her statement. “I can’t start to consider what you are likely by each individual working day,” she wrote to Duffey’s relatives, including, “I am sorry he is not here any longer, and I would modify that if I could.”

Henderson claimed Everton experienced prepared to come to be a veterinarian and worked at a veterinary medical center. Some coworkers testified on her behalf Tuesday, as did her mother and stepfather.

“A nanosecond of distraction can adjust everybody’s daily life,” Henderson instructed the court docket, expressing Everton was not noticeably impaired when the wreck transpired.

Anthony countered that the crash occurred on a distinct working day when Everton ought to have noticed the motorcycle coming: “This wasn’t at evening. This was not a blind curve. This wasn’t a hill.”

McBride stated he had to take into account people situation in choosing the sentence, alongside with the evidence of Everton’s marijuana use and the reduction of existence.

“You in no way get around the reduction of a loved 1 in this type of incident,” the judge said, adding that the greater the adore, the larger the reduction: “Grief is the cost that you spend for enjoy.”

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