A 20-year-old South Windsor woman who crashed an SUV into a tree last year while she was speeding and high, killing two teen passengers, was sentenced Tuesday to eight and a half years in prison.
Sara Ballard was also sentenced to five years of probation, after she pleaded guilty to two counts of vehicular manslaughter for killing Brook Wormstedt, a 15-year-old East Windsor High School student, and Matthew Masse, 18, of Vernon, and two counts of vehicular assault for injuring two others.
Prosecutors said that Ballard had gone for a joy ride with the victims after a night of drinking and drug use in May 2013 and crashed on a hill in South Windsor.
Masse's mother was among the people urging the judge for a tough sentence.
"There are just no words to express the loss that we live with everyday and the emptiness in the house," Masse said.
Wormstedt's grandmother Josephine Barnett also spoke.
"Our lives stopped that night she died in that car," Barnett said.
Ballard looked down at times during the hearing and often wiped tears from her eyes, but she showed no emotion when Judge Laura Baldini announced her sentence.
"I will never understand your pain, and I'm truly sorry that I caused this," Ballard said.
Barnett said she's "not disappointed" with the sentence.
"Would have been disappointed with six years, and I think our family is going to go on from here and try to do our best to forgive all," she said.
The arrest warrant for Ballard says she was under the influence of marijuana and was driving an SUV 80 miles per hour when it careened off Abbe Road in South Windsor and struck a tree just after 8 p.m. on Saturday, May 25, 2013.
Ballard was charged with manslaughter with a motor vehicle, second-degree, reckless driving and driving under the influence in the crash.
She entered a not guilty plea to manslaughter charges in Manchester Superior Court last year.
According to online court records, she pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree manslaughter and two counts of second-degree assault with a motor vehicle and pleaded not guilty to illegal operation of a motor vehicle under the influence of drugs or alcohol and reckless driving.
