A hit-and-run driver killed a woman headed home from a funeral. Now he’s sentenced
A man accused of a hit-and-run crash in Tacoma that killed a woman coming home from a funeral was sentenced Wednesday.
Jeremy Dwayne Murray, 25, previously pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide, vehicular assault and attempting to elude police — in connection with the wreck that killed 67-year-old Monica Santos.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge James Orlando sentenced Murray to seven and a half years in prison, which is what the defense and prosecution recommended.
The wreck happened May 15 after Murray, driving without headlights, almost hit a pedestrian. When officers who saw that tried to stop him, he sped off and almost hit other vehicles.
Officers stopped chasing Murray but he ran a red light and crashed his 2002 Dodge Stratus into the 1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue Santos was driving at East 56th Street and McKinley Avenue.
Murray ran away from the crash, and the next day a tipster identified him to police as the hit-and-run driver.
Santos died at the crash scene, and a passenger was hurt.
“Our mother was taken from us six blocks from her house, 10 days after her 67th birthday, as she was coming home from a friend’s funeral,” Santos’ daughter, Sally Mary de Leon, told the court.
Sometimes, she told the judge, it still feels as if her mother might come back, and tell her it was all one of her practical jokes.
“My mother didn’t have to die the way she did,” de Leon said. “And now she’s gone, and she’s left me the burden and responsibility to keep the family together, and I can’t even keep myself together.”
She said she wants Murray to use his time in jail to reflect on what he did, and that she hopes her siblings and children find peace and heal.
“And I hope the same for Jeremy too,” she said.
When it was Murray’s turn to address the judge, he said he’d been “childish” and “reckless,” and that he felt “grief, sorrow, humiliation and anger” about what happened.
He wants to prove he can do better, he said.
“I have no other choice but to remain drug free and stay away from the street life,” Murray said. “This is my last chance to ever be successful in this world.”
Before handing down the sentence, Orlando spoke to Murray.
“Oftentimes when people decide they’re going to run from the police for whatever reason, it’s usually for a reason that would have no significant consequence,” the judge said. “... In many of these cases, the folks that are injured are the completely innocent parties. The person causing the wreck typically will walk away from it relatively unscathed.”
He also addressed some of Murray’s personal struggles.
“I know that you had a hard upbringing, that you lost your mom at a young age, that you’ve been arrested and convicted of serious felony offenses previous to this, that you were using drugs and living a lifestyle that was basically on the streets and out of control,” he said. “But that doesn’t give you any excuse to take another person’s life.”
Outside court, de Leon shared memories of her mother with The News Tribune. She said Santos knew how to have a good time, and enjoyed doing so at local casinos.
“My mom was such a wild child, that literally, in the Philippines, my grandmother placed her in a convent so that she would graduate high school,” de Leon laughed. “No joke.”
Santos graduated college and became a midwife, and most recently had been working as a part-time certified nursing assistant.
“She just wanted to have fun,” de Leon said.
This story was originally published November 28, 2018 at 5:51 PM.
