SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C. — The emotion was raw Monday in a South Carolina courtroom.
"This was not some perfect storm of accidental events," said Maci Walts. "It was an act of evil, and it took their lives."
Walts was the sole survivor of a wrong-way crash that killed three Fishers teens, Brianna Foster and twin sisters Elle and Belle Gaddis.
At sentencing, family expressed their heartbreak and their anger at Melissa Ann Parker. She pleaded guilty to multiple crimes, including deadly DUI.
"I never thought people could be so cruel, that someone could hit a car full of innocent people and instead of checking them or helping them, they would run away like a coward and ignore the cries for help," said Hailey Foster, Brianna's sister.
It was 2021 when the Gaddis twins, Foster and Walts went on a road trip to a South Carolina beach as a sendoff to summer. On an interstate highway, police say 43-year-old Parker crashed into the teens' car head-on. The Hummer she was driving had been stolen. Parker was going 70 miles an hour. She ran off after the crash.
Walts survived the impact.
"I remember sobbing in the back of the ambulance because I didn't know where my friends were," Walts said Monday.
Parker got the maximum sentence Monday, 25 years in prison and a $75,000 fine. She'll receive credit for jail time already served.
"I wish she was going to stay there longer, but at least I feel better knowing that at least for the next 21 years, she won't be out there able to hurt anybody else," Walts said.
"I understand it's the max sentence, but I don't believe it's enough time. I think she should die in prison," said Hailey's mom, Jodi Foster.
Justice, they said, doesn't seem to have happened.
"Dissatisfied is putting it mildly," said Andy Gaddis, father of the twins. "Truth is, the closest I ever feel to my girls is in that ditch. That's the reality of this life."