GOLDEN — A teenager faces four years in a strict youth-offender program for driving drunk and killing another teen, which should serve as a warning to the community, the dead girl’s father said Wednesday.
“I hope it’s a strong message about drinking and driving,” Bill Stricklen said.
He said he hoped the sentence “has really made an impact” on 18-year-old Nanette LaFleur, who on March 13, 2007, crossed the center line on West Alameda Parkway and slammed into a car driven by Seth Mutschler, now 21.
Samara Stricklen, 17, a Bear Creek High School student and a passenger in Mutschler’s car, was killed. Mutschler was severely injured.
On Wednesday, LaFleur pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide while driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, and vehicular assault-DUI.
Under an agreement between the Jefferson County district attorney’s office and LaFleur’s attorney, she will serve a four-year sentence, and on July 9, she also will be sentenced to other stipulations, including a possible four- to 12-year prison term if she fails to complete the youth-offender program.
“This was no deal,” DA Scott Storey said. Seven less serious counts from a June 2007 grand-jury indictment of LaFleur were dropped.
The Youthful Offender System, based in Pueblo, provides a range of treatment, educational and vocational programs in a regimented environment.
“This is a very hands-on intensive system,” Storey said. “It’s no free ride.”
Bill Stricklen said LaFleur’s guilty pleas give his family “a sense of relief” over not having to go through a trial.
After the crash, LaFleur told Alison Bowen, 16, whose parents owned the car, to get into the driver’s seat. The girls lied to police about who was driving. Investigators used DNA on the driver’s side air bag to help determine who was behind the wheel.
In January, Bowen was sentenced to 45 days in a juvenile facility and two years of probation for attempting to influence a public servant as well as DUI, for driving earlier on the evening of the accident.
Also Wednesday, a liquor-store clerk, Van Thien Pham, 44, pleaded guilty to 10 counts of providing alcohol to minors. One of those counts relates to the fatal crash.
Pham will be sentenced July 9. Each count carries a jail sentence of up to 18 months and a fine of up to $5,000.
“We want Nanette and Pham to realize that we lost a significant part of our lives,” Stricklen said of himself and his wife, Michelle. “We want them to remember what they did to our daughter.”
Ann Schrader: 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com
