Driver gets 34 years to life in deaths of two girls
Mr. Sweetness & Light
By Greg Moran
STAFF WRITER
October 26, 1999
EL CAJON -- The driver of a pickup that raced through a Lakeside school zone
and killed two 9-year-old girls who were walking home was sentenced to 34
years to life in prison at an emotional sentencing hearing yesterday.
Richard Alan Clements II will likely never be paroled unless an appeal he is
planning is successful, according to his attorney, Kerry Steigerwalt.
Clements, 19, was convicted in August of two counts of second-degree murder
in the deaths of Adina Gonzalez and Christie Turner.
The two were run down in December as Clements sped away from a California
Highway Patrol officer who pursued Clements after noticing that he was
driving erratically. Clements ran two stop signs during the chase and spun
out once, according to testimony at his trial.
When the officer realized Clements was racing toward Lemon Crest Elementary
School, he broke off the chase. School was just letting out -- and children
were boarding buses and walking home when the truck came speeding through
the area.
Clements told the judge yesterday that he did not mean to kill the two
girls, and that his truck went out of control. He said he "had a life, and I
want it back," insisted the deaths were an accident and took a verbal shot
at prosecutor George Bennett.
"Mr. Bennett, he gets a kick out of sending people to prison. I shouldn't go
to prison," he said.
But family and friends of the two victims insisted that Clements should be
sent away, and described the heartache and torment they live with in the
aftermath of the crash.
"Every night, every day, every second of my life I have to deal with the
pain and emptiness and loss of my daughter Adina," an angry Carol Gonzalez
told Clements.
Mike Turner, the father of Christie Turner, said Clements' personal history
was a major factor in the deaths. Clements had received three traffic
tickets in the preceding months, and at the time he hit the girls he was out
on bail after being charged a couple of weeks earlier with shoplifting
computer games and a CD from a Wal-Mart store.
"This was the culmination of a life that refused to submit to authority,"
Mike Turner said. "The trouble is, innocent victims get in the way of a life
like this."
Prosecutor Bennett said Clements fled police simply because he did not want
to get another ticket and lose his license. The defense said Clements is
brain damaged from being struck by a car several years earlier, and has
difficulty making judgments and controlling his impulses.
His father, Richard Clements Sr., pleaded with the judge to take into
account his son's injury. He said his son was not the same after his
accident -- the younger Clements was in intensive care for six weeks and
nearly died twice.
"If someone has to go to prison, send me," the elder Clements said. "Send my
son to a hospital."
Defense lawyer Steigerwalt asked Superior Court Judge Patricia Cookson to
reduce the sentence to a term applicable to a manslaughter conviction, which
would have meant a maximum of 11 years in prison. But Cookson turned that
request aside, saying that Clements' conduct and the death of the two girls
clearly merited a longer term.
At the end, Clements had the last words.
As bailiffs led him out of the courtroom, Clements turned to the gallery
packed mostly with friends and family of the two girls. He raised his hands
and said:
"I'm dead, y'all. I'm dead. Thank you. Appreciate it."
Outside of court his father said that his son probably meant he did not
think he could survive prison. He said his son has been beaten up four times
in jail since the incident Dec. 9.
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My two cents:
Wanna bet a relative of one of the two girls has an inside line to someone
in the prison system someplace?
Poor boy probably ought to get a softer pillow to bite. His parents should
have also taken away his car before this ever occurred.