A California teen who, while drunk driving, livestreamed a car crash that killed her sister has been sentenced to more than six years in prison.
Obdulia Sanchez, 19, was sentenced on Thursday, Feb. 8 after pleading no contest last month to charges of gross vehicular manslaughter, driving under the influence and child endangerment arising from the July 2017 crash.
Sanchez, 18 at the time, had veered onto the shoulder of the road on the outskirts of Los Banos in central California on July 21. Authorities said she overcorrected, causing the vehicle to swerve and overturn into a field. Her 14-year-old sister, Jacqueline, was thrown from the back seat and died. Her sister’s 15-year-old friend, Manuela Ceja, was injured.
The teen was recording herself driving on Instagram Live in a video that captured the entire event.
The video, which went viral, shows Sanchez standing over her sister’s body, saying: “I … killed my sister, OK. I know I am going to jail for life, all right? This is the last thing that I wanted to happen, OK?”
In sentencing, the Judge Hansen acknowledged that Sanchez had expressed remorse and accepted responsibility for her actions. The judge also said he also had to take into account sentences given in similar cases, the Sun reported.
“It should have been me. I should have been hurt or killed. Never Jackie or never Manuela,” Sanchez said in court on Thursday.
“I had so much potential, but I threw it all away because I wanted to look cool and drive carelessly.”
Last year, Sanchez admitted that this was not the first time she livestreamed herself behind the wheel, saying she did it “all the time.”
“It’s like a reflex. Like I haven’t crashed, you know?” she told KPGE-TV. “Everybody does it. Everybody does. They take Snapchats. Everybody does it. Why not? People take video of them in cars like all the time. And I’m only 18—we’re still young.”
Friends Read Free