Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) — A truck driver has been sentenced to between 10 and 20 years in prison for falling asleep at the wheel of her semitractor-trailer and causing a fatal crash in Wyoming.
The Laramie Boomerang reports 48-year-old Tonya Hightower was sentenced Tuesday for the March 2018 accident that killed 57-year-old Vidal Madera of Laramie.
The commercial truck driver from Kansas pleaded not guilty to aggravated homicide by vehicle.
A jury found her guilty in August after determining her decision to drive on Interstate 80 while knowingly fatigued constituted recklessness.
Hightower told a Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper at the scene that she had taken leftover pills from a 2017 surgery including hydrocodone, a prescription opioid pain medication.
Court records say she did not test positive for narcotics when blood was drawn later.
___
Information from: Laramie Boomerang, http://www.laramieboomerang.com
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
