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Ashley Monroe, 36, was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison on Wednesday, Oct. 15In August, she pleaded no contest to eight counts of driving while intoxicated causing serious injury and one count of second-degree murder“You made me a 28-year-old widow,” said the wife of one victim during sentencing
A Michigan woman who was pregnant and drunk at the time she drove her car into a large extended family, killing two of them, was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison on Wednesday, Oct. 15.
Ashley Monroe, 36, pleaded no contest in August to eight counts of driving while intoxicated causing serious injury and one count of second-degree murder, WILX reported.
Monroe was behind the wheel on May 18, 2024, when she hit extended family members walking from a home to a nearby park in Wacousta Township, according to the Lansing State Journal. Johnathan Esch, 30, and Daniel Harris, 42, were killed in the incident and 14 others, including eight children, were taken to hospitals, according to ABC13.
Jonathan Allen Esch.
Johnathan Allen Esch/Facebook
Daniel George Harris.
Palmer Bush and Jensen Family Funeral Homes
Monroe continued driving until she was pulled over by Clinton County Sheriff’s Office deputies about two miles away from where the incident occurred, the State Journal reported. Inside her vehicle, deputies found a nearly empty pint bottle of whiskey in her purse and two pill bottles, deputies testified during an earlier hearing, per the outlet.
Monroe was pregnant with her fifth child at the time of the crash, according to WJRT.
“This family is going to have to live with memories of this terrible tragedy for the rest of their lives,” Circuit Judge Cori Barkman said during the sentencing hearing Wednesday, per the State Journal.
Many of the victims and surviving family members also read victim impact statements.
Ashley Marie Monroe.
Clinton County Sheriff’s Office
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“Ashley. You made me a 28-year-old widow,” Esch’s wife Erika Glatz said, according to WILX. “Working in the medical field myself, I know good people can make horrible mistakes. I can understand and empathize with someone who has made a mistake. But Ashley, this was not a mistake. You chose to drink while pregnant. You chose to drive. And perhaps most vile of all, you chose to run over an entire family and flee.”
“Make no mistake, what you did was murder,” Esch’s mother Dee said, per the outlet. “You are a murderer.”
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