Forestville woman sentenced to 13 years for fatal DUI crash

<p>A Forestville woman who killed a Rohnert Park mother of five in a drunken-driving accident last fall was sentenced Friday to 13 years in state prison.</p><p>Judy Shafer, 56, pleaded guilty in the Sept. 14 crash west of Santa Rosa that killed Kathy O'Daniel, 54, and injured her 15-year-old daughter, Kelcee.</p><p>Judge Arthur Wick handed down the maximum sentence after an emotional hearing in which O'Daniel's husband, Chuck, and four of his five children urged the court to keep Shafer behind bars.</p><p>Wick said the suffering caused to the family, combined with Shafer's high alcohol level and apparent lack of remorse, were factors in reaching his decision.</p><p>Chuck O'Daniel read a prepared statement laced with biblical passages and references to the family's Christian faith, and said he was pleased with the sentence.</p><p>“Nobody really wins here,” he said outside the courtroom, his children ages 15 to 27 gathered nearby.</p><p>Throughout the hearing, Shafer cried and mumbled in sorrowful tones. When O'Daniel talked about his wedding anniversary, she said, “Oh, dear God.” When prosecutor Bob Waner made closing remarks, she sobbed, “It should have been me.”</p><p>Her lawyer, Jamie Thistlethwaite, argued for a shorter sentence of nine years, pointing to Shafer's lack of prior drunken-driving offenses and her willingness to enter alcohol treatment programs.</p><p>Her family also asked for leniency. Daughter Skandia Shafer, 23, said her mother had a recent breakthrough after years shrouded by drugs and alcohol. The woman's two younger brothers described her as a loving person who made a mistake.</p><p>“If this family is as Christian as they say they are, there should be some forgiveness,” said Tim Traeger, one of Shafer's brothers.</p><p>With credit for time already served and the state's 85 percent sentencing law, Shafer could be out of prison in about 10 years, Thistlethwaite said. </p><p>Thistlethwaite said the sentence seemed high compared to some recent fatal-DUI cases. In one involving a Central Valley prosecutor's son who killed one person and left another in a coma, the sentence was just over three years. In another, a Windsor man got four years for killing five family members. He wasn't drunk but had traces of drugs in his system.</p><p>Prosecutors said Shafer had a .19 blood-alcohol level and was high on prescription drugs when she got behind the wheel. On a stretch of Llano Road in rural Sonoma County, she swerved her Jeep Cherokee across the double-yellow line and went head-on into a Honda Civic driven by O'Daniel.</p><p>O'Daniel had been driving her daughter home from volleyball practice at Analy High. She died at the scene. Kelcee was hospitalized with a hand injury and lacerated spleen.</p><p>At the sentencing Friday, Kelcee O'Daniel described how she heard her mother's last words and awoke in a hospital bed to learn her mother was dead.</p><p>Coincidentally, she said, Shafer was in the bed next to hers. She recalled that Shafer complained about the damage to her car despite the “scars all over my body to remind me of what happened that day.”</p><p>Shafer wailed as she spoke.</p><p> “It's definitely going to take time for my family to forgive you,” Kelcee O'Daniel said. “It doesn't mean we won't.”</p>