BOSTON (WHDH) - The woman found guilty for her role in a crash that killed a 2-year-old boy in South Boston has been sentenced to 60 days in jail.
Charlene Casey was sentenced Thursday afternoon, over four years after the crash that killed Colin McGrath. A jury found Casey guilty earlier in October, agreeing with prosecutors that she was at fault when she entered an intersection at L and East Sixth streets, hitting a traveling van that, in turn, hit the Colin, who was in a stroller on a sidewalk.
Casey was also sentenced to two years probation and 100 hours of community service, in addition to a suspension of her driver’s license for 15 years.
In the weeks leading up to their verdict, jurors saw surveillance video from the chain reaction crash and reached a decision soon after visiting the crash site. The jury came to its decision on the second day of deliberations.
Earlier in the sentencing trial Thursday, Colin’s mother, Dr. Kerri McGrath, became emotional in the courtroom as she recounted the impact the loss of her son had on her family.
“We’ve struggled as individuals and as a couple to cope with the loss that we experienced – a loss of the expectations we had when we first felt his kicks, when we heard ‘it’s a boy’ in the delivery room, when we chose his name and thought about who that boy would become,” McGrath said.
As part of the victim impact statements, Colin’s father read a note to the court from the boy’s sister, Sloane, who was seriously injured in the crash and needed four operations.
“I’m not going to forgive you until you say ‘sorry,'” Sloane McGrath said in the note. “You did something very bad. You need to take responsibility of this at some point. It’s not OK.”
The children’s nanny, Tracey Lewis, also spoke at the sentencing. She had been pushing Colin in the stroller at the time of the crash.
“I love Colin, honestly, like he was my own son,” she said. “There was nothing I wouldn’t have done for that child.”
Casey, 67, had been charged with motor vehicle homicide in the case and pleaded not guilty. She left the courtroom in handcuffs Thursday afternoon without saying anything to the judge or the McGrath family.
Her nephew, Robbie Pacitti, said she was devastated.
“It was an accident – it was a car accident, I don’t know, you know?” Pacitti said. “Also, speed was involved. She was sober, she wasn’t high, she wasn’t drinking.
During the trial, the defense brought up how the van Casey hit was driving above the speed limit at the time of the chain reaction crash.
A Boston Police detective who investigated the crash, however, testified that speed was not a factor in the crash, and that the van had the right of way when Casey pulled into the road.
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