Driver jailed for deadly crash
SANDPOINT — A Post Falls man is being ordered to serve 60 days in jail for a moment of inattention which caused a deadly chain-reaction crash on U.S. Highway 95 in Elmira last year.
Alexander Craig Hjelt pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter at the misdemeanor level on the day he was to be tried in Bonner County Magistrate Court, court records show.
Idaho State Police said Hjelt was northbound on U.S. 95 when he neglected to see that traffic ahead of him had stopped for a motorist who was waiting to make a left-hand turn off the highway.
The pickup truck Hjelt was driving collided into the back of a Saturn driven by Kathleen Louise Ginter. The collision propelled Ginter’s vehicle into the southbound lane of travel and into the path of an oncoming vehicle. Ginter, 60, was killed in the June 2, 2015, collision.
Hjelt, 25, told a trooper that he was looking out the window and didn’t have enough time avoid crashing into Ginter’s car, according to court documents. State police ruled out impairment and mobile phone use as factors in the crash.
Hjelt was ultimately charged with driving in a careless and imprudent manner. He pleaded guilty on June 30.
Hjelt apologized to Ginter’s family and said his actions that day continue to haunt him.
“But it’s nothing compared to the loss you are feeling,” Hjelt told the family. “I can only say I’m sorry. I can only give you my apologies and remorse for the rest of my life for what I have done.”
Ginter’s daughter, Samantha Gipson, read a brief statement written by her own daughter. The 9-year-old said she missed making cookies with her grandmother, playing boardgames, having sleepovers and gardening with her.
Gipson said she enjoyed a close relationship with her mother and discovered at Ginter’s funeral that Ginter was planning to marry her boyfriend.
“After her passing, I found myself looking out my bedroom window, watching for her red Saturn to drive down my driveway — hoping and praying this was all a bad dream,” said Gipson.
Bonner County Deputy Prosecutor Roger Hanlon and Hjelt’s defense counsel, Coeur d’Alene attorney Scot Nass, jointly recommended that Hjelt be given a 180-day jail sentence with 120 days suspended. Hanlon left a driver’s license suspension at the court’s discretion.
Judge Debra Heise adopted the sentencing recommendation and granted a withheld judgment due to the lack of a prior criminal record. If Hjelt satisfies all his court-ordered obligations, the charge will remain on his record, although the conviction will be wiped from it.
Heise placed Hjelt on probation for two years and suspended his driver’s license for six months.
Restitution will be determined in a civil suit brought against Hjelt and his former employer, a Montana-based satellite installation subcontractor.
Heise also urged Hjelt to use his experience to counsel others about the perils of inattentive driving.
Heise sympathized with the loss incurred by Ginter’s family and said the legal explanation for the crash — inattention — did little to answer the broader question of why the collision happened.
“The one thing that the system cannot provide is an answer as to why. There’s just no answer,” she said.