16-year-old killed 2 kids and grandma in hit-and-run, cops say. He gets life in prison
A 16-year-old was fleeing police in a stolen vehicle when he hit and killed a grandma and two kids in 2016, Georgia authorities said.
Now, at 24, Diontre Tigner has been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, plus six years, WSB-TV reported.
Almost exactly eight years ago, on Jan. 31, 2016, Tigner carjacked someone and set off a high-speed police chase in College Park, according to WAGA.
Dorothy Wright, 75, was on her way to church that morning with her two grandchildren, 12-year-old Cameron Costner and 6-year-old Layla Partridge, the outlet reported.
That’s when Tigner crashed into their car, killing them, and fled the scene, the College Park Police Department said.
He evaded capture until December 2021. He was arrested and charged with 15 counts related to the crash five years earlier, Fulton County records show.
At the trial, Tigner’s lawyer argued the family’s deaths were unintentional, saying the then-teen’s “stupid decisions resulted in accidental consequences.”
On Jan. 18, the jury read out guilty verdicts on all 15 counts, including charges of felony murder, hit-and-run, theft and reckless driving.
He was sentenced Jan. 22. At the hearing, the judge pointed to Tigner’s behavior after the fatal crash as the reason for handing down the sentence she did.
“Years later you were still stealing cars and engaging in police chases. So I’m not sure at what point the lesson will be learned,” she said at the hearing broadcast by WXIA.
The father of the 6-year-old girl told WSB-TV the sentence, because of the possibility of parole, was too lenient.
“Justice wasn’t served and we’re walking away from this the same way we walked away from it 8 years ago when the accident happened,” he said.
The mother told 11Alive she was “glad he got life.”
College Park is in the Atlanta metropolitan area.
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