Petaluma driver gets five years in prison for deadly Lakeville Highway crash

A Petaluma man who killed a Vallejo woman and injured her 8-year-old granddaughter in a drunken-driving crash on Lakeville Highway in June was sentenced Monday to five years in prison.

Jesse Martin Cockrill, 25, received the punishment for the head-on crash that killed retired special education teacher Betty Osotonu, 65. She was driving home from a Santa Rosa church with her granddaughter at the time.

Cockrill had a blood-alcohol content of .16 percent, twice the legal limit to drive. He was on probation for public drunkenness and ordered not to consume alcohol.

He faced up to eight years in prison after pleading no contest to a count of felony vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and causing great bodily injury. Judge Dana Simonds handed down a lighter term, citing his remorse and lack of a serious criminal record.

The sentence came after the family played an 18-minute video set to Pacific Island music that featured photographs of Betty Osotonu, who taught at Travis Air Force Base.

Her husband, Osotonu Osotonu, a retired Army sergeant, said he accepted Cockrill’s apology and forgave him. But he said his wife’s death took a toll on the family and left him a “broken soldier.”

“We lost the glue that held us together,” said Osotonu, who appeared in court in his dress uniform.