An illegal immigrant from Mexico will serve 12 and a half years in prison for crashing into and killing an Oregon couple while driving drunk.
Eduardo de la Lima Vargas, 40, plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter and DUI on May 8, according to Statesman Journal. He will not be eligible for early release or alternative programs and faces deportation upon release.
De la Lima Vargas was driving a truck pulling an occupied horse trailer on Aug. 19 when he ran a red light and crashed into Logan Wilson, 34, and Jessica Wilson, 32, who were riding a motorcycle. The impact of the crash threw the Wilsons from the motorcycle which got wedged under the truck. Both vehicles caught fire.
The Wilson’s leave behind three children between the ages of 11 and 15.
De La Lima Vargas reportedly did not ask about the people he had hit, but instead, whether his horse was ok, former Marion County prosecutor Lori Evans said in court, according to Statesman Journal.
“He did, however, express concern for his horse, which had been in the horse trailer at the time of both of the crashes,” Evans said. The horse did survive the crash.
Two hours before the crash, he was involved in another property damage incident in which one witness called the police, but De la Lima Vargas reportedly threatened to shoot the witness and sped off, according to the news outlet.
De la Lima Vargas had a blood-alcohol content of 0.10 percent two hours after he crashed into the parents of three, the Statesman Journal reported.
The victims’ friends and family members held a demonstration outside the courthouse before the hearing, holding up “stolen lives quilt” banners depicting those who have been killed by illegal immigrants in Oregon. They also wore shirts with a picture of the Wilsons that read “killed by an illegal alien in a drunk driving crash on 8-19-2018.”
Family members expressed frustration at the sentencing and said that De la Lima Vargas’ being fed, housed, and visited by his family members in a jail cell is a “slap in the face.”
“I didn’t think justice was served at all,” Debbie Stroud, the grandmother of the Wilson’s children said, according to Statesman Journal.
