Man who crashed into van full of women and children gets 12 years

When Courtney Everett came out of her coma two months after surviving a car crash in 2013, she was surrounded by her family at the hospital. But one important person was missing: her sister.

“She asked why Brittany wasn’t there,” said their aunt, Anaya Jamison.

While her family had been grieving for months over the loss of Brittany Everett, Courtney Everett was the last to learn that her sister and their friend didn't make it on the way home from their joint birthday celebration. She learned that Ronald Jerome Hayes Jr. sped through a red light while fleeing from police, plowed into their minivan and ran away from the wreckage to hide near woods.

On Thursday, Courtney Everett and the rest of her family watched and wept as a judge sentenced Hayes to 12 years in prison — six years for the death of Brittany Everett, 23, and six for the death of her friend Brittany Queen, 21, who was also in the van.

“He stole Brittany’s life from her [sister] and us,” Jamison said during Hayes’s sentencing in Prince George’s County court. “Courtney’s birthday will never be the same.”

Hayes pleaded guilty in March to two counts of manslaughter.

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Christopher A. Griffiths, Hayes’s attorney, said his client was “very remorseful” and “thinks constantly about the pain that he’s brought to so many people.”

But Hayes “didn’t set out to hurt anyone that night” and was taking responsibility for his actions by pleading guilty, Griffiths said.

Hayes was driving a black Infiniti the night of Dec. 10, 2013. Police tried to stop him because they thought the Infiniti he was driving might be connected with a shooting reported that evening.

But Hayes did not stop, police and prosecutors said. He drove through neighborhoods around Capitol Heights at speeds of 73 to 80 mph and at one point turned off the car’s lights to try to elude police. Then, at Hill Road and Central Avenue in Capitol Heights, he drove through a red light and ran into the side of the minivan carrying four women and two children. Five people, including a passenger in Hayes’s car, were injured.

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Hayes, who authorities said was under the influence of drugs and alcohol when he crashed, is seen on video shot from the air running from the scene toward nearby woods.

“I can’t believe that you left the scene of an accident of that horrific nature,” Judge Beverly J. Woodard said in sentencing Hayes.

Hayes, wearing a blue shirt and glasses, declined to speak at his sentencing. His attorney said Hayes had difficulty expressing himself, but his mother arrived dressed in black “as a sign of her sorrow” for the bereaved families.

Woodard asked, “How difficult is it to say, ‘I’m sorry’?”

Hayes’s sentence is four years above the recommended maximum for such charges.

Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Angela D. Alsobrooks applauded the sentence, saying Hayes’s “conduct all along the way was breathtakingly horrendous.”

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Although Griffiths admitted that his client was “driving recklessly,” he questioned whether it was appropriate for Prince George’s police to start a pursuit, particularly at night.

Julie Parker, a spokeswoman for the county police, said the department conducted a routine internal investigation along with an executive review of the matter that included top commanders, the inspector general’s office and staffers from the training and internal-affairs departments.

“Our routine post-incident internal investigation revealed there were some departmental violations which were appropriately addressed,” Parker said in a statement.

The sentencing hearing was emotional. Members of Queen’s and Everett’s families filled the courtroom, some calling Hayes a “coward” in their victim impact statements while remembering the joy their loved ones had brought to their relatives and the community.

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Relatives said Queen had aspired to join the armed services and was two months’ pregnant at the time of the crash.

Queen’s mother, Francine Queen, wore a T-shirt with an ultrasound image on the front and a vest with a photo of her daughter on the back.

“I was so proud to be a grandmother,” Francine Queen said, “but it was taken away from me.”

Everett had been working toward a master's degree in public relations at the University of Maryland and was described as a mother figure to a number of girls without mothers of their own in the District.Jamison said that the sentence will help her family start to heal but that she still doesn't understand why Hayes did not stay after the crash.

“He cannot run from God,” Jamison said. “God will deal with him.”

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