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Steven Kranendonk was sentenced to 10 years in the State Pen today. The hell he is getting ready to go through I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, yet he deserves every inch of it. Even when he eventually gets out, as a convicted felon, he will never be able to enjoy many of the freedoms that make life worth living. Let this be a lesson to us all. Do not drink and drive. Not a boat, a car, or a bigwheel. The unspeakable loss of life that night can, at least, serve as a wakeup to all of us...
Steven Kranendonk is emotional while being escorted from the courtroom after being found guilty of two counts of aggravated manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday at the Richland County Courthouse. Kelli Bullard and Amber Golden died as a result of a boating collision on Lake Murray in which Kranendonk was piloting the boat.
- Tracy Glantz
An Irmo boater was sentenced to 10 years in prison after a Richland County jury Friday convicted him of reckless homicide in the deaths of two women in a 2010 watercraft collision on Lake Murray.
A tearful Steven Kranendonk, 26, apologized to the families of Kelli Bullard and Amber Golden before his sentencing.
“I never meant for this to happen,” he said amid sobs that at times made him inaudible. “Not a day goes by that I don’t weep.
“I hope one day you can forgive me.”
In sentencing Kranendonk, Circuit Judge G. Thomas Cooper Jr. turned back his lawyer’s plea for a lesser penalty.
“I can’t ignore the enormity of suffering that has been placed on the community by his actions,” Cooper said.
Cooper’s decision came after family members spoke.
Kranendonk’s father, Michael, said the crash has devastated his family members as well as those of the women.
“There aren’t enough words to say how sorry we are,” he said, adding he hoped for eventual “healing, peace and forgiveness between our families.”
The parents of Bullard and Golden each wept in telling how their daughters’ deaths still haunt them.
“We will never recover,” Bullard’s mother, Paula, said. “We’re the ones who will be forever punished.” Father Jerry Bullard said he is satisfied with the sentence, but promised to oppose any bid by the younger Kranendonk for parole before the sentence is completely served.
Golden’s father, Bill said “a limb has been severed from my family tree” and urged the younger Kranendonk to “set your compass on a new course” while in prison.
The jury of five men and seven women found Kranendonk guilty in the deaths of Bullard, 25, of Lexington, and Golden, 24, of Huntsville, Ala., in a late-night collision May 1, 2010.
The verdict was announced three hours after deliberation started, with Kranendonk found guilty on two counts of reckless homicide. At the start of the trial Monday, prosecutors dropped charges of homicide while intoxicated in favor reckless-homicide charges, which carry a lighter sentence, without explanation.
Cooper gave the maximum penalty of 10 years for each count but said the sentences will be served simultaneously, instead of consecutively.
Bullard and Golden were on a cruise with their boyfriends when the crash occurred near Susie Ebert and Flotilla islands, in the northeast corner of the lake.
The younger Kranendonk admitted to authorities he drank alcoholic beverages during the day, but two passengers on the boat said he didn’t seem intoxicated or distracted while driving the boat that crashed into the left side of the one on which the women rode.
A blood test measured Kranendonk’s intoxication at 0.11, above the level of 0.08 considered legal impairment in operation of a vehicle in South Carolina.
Kranendonk’s lawyer, Jonathan Harvey, raised questions during the trial about whether state Natural Resources officers had adequate reason to seek the test.
Assistant solicitor Foster Mathews told jurors that Kranendonk’s “reckless behavior” caused the crash as he failed to yield way to the boat on which the women rode and ignored other rules of navigation.
Harvey countered that prosecutors failed to show “conscious indifference” on Kranendonk’s part.
Harvey said after Friday’s sentencing it’s too soon to say if Kranendonk will appeal.
Before the criminal trial, the Kranendonks paid the Bullards and the Goldens each more than $245,000 in settlements last fall. The younger Kranendonk admitted no liability in those settlements.
Ray Lewis, chief state investigator into the crash, expressed hope that the outcome sends a message to boaters to slow down, stay sober and adhere to boating guidelines.
The crash was one of two minutes apart in the same section of the lake that resulted in the deaths of four people. The accidents spurred boating groups to call for new efforts to promote safety on the lake.
Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/03/09/2...#storylink=cpy
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Originally Posted by sprigdog
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