The Indiana driver who killed three children at a bus stop on Oct. 30, 2018, was found guilty of criminal homicide on Oct. 18 by a Fulton County jury, according to multiple reports.
In addition to three counts of reckless homicide, the jury had also found her guilty of criminal recklessness, and a misdemeanor count for passing a school bus when its stop arm had been deployed, according to USA Today. If the maximum time is allotted for each charge, she could be facing up to 21 years in prison, the news outlet reported.
In a 2018 report from USA Today, Alyssa Shepherd drove past a school bus in her Toyota pickup truck around 7 a.m. and struck four children, leaving three dead at the scene and one in critical condition.
The parents of the dead children may never have the closure they need, but they do have the verdict to help them move forward, USA Today reported. The parents said that they had no sympathy towards Shepherd and that Shepherd had, in fact, not shown any form of remorse for her actions.
Twins Xzavier and Mason Ingle, both 6 years old, and Alivia Stahl, a nine-year-old child, were pronounced dead at the scene. The fourth child, Maverick Lowe, age 11, was transported to the Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne via an airlift, according to USA Today.
Lowe, the then-11-year-old who Shepherd hit on the day of the accident, testified at Shepherd’s trial and said that at the time of the incident, he had seen headlights, but kept on going forward and was struck by Shepherd’s car, according to ABC News. The news outlet reported that he had spent about a month in the hospital and has undergone 21 surgeries.
Shepherd said that she had been driving down the road when she saw a large vehicle but did not know what it was. She had just dropped off her husband and had her kids in the back of her car, preparing to drop them off at a church, when she came across the school bus.
“I saw a vehicle, it was a very large vehicle. I couldn’t tell what it was,” Shepherd said, according to ABC News. “When I saw children I instantly knew it was a bus.”
She said that once she knew what the vehicle was she remembers applying the brakes, but does not remember how she turned the steering wheel.
Indiana has since implemented stricter laws for those who illegally pass school buses that have stopped with its red lights flashing and stop arm out, according to USA Today. The parents of the three children who died had lobbied for these changes.
