Driver gets 5 years in Pierce County crash. Victim’s family: ‘Our punishment is forever’
A 35-year-old woman who intentionally drove into oncoming traffic in Lakewood and caused a two-car crash has pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and been sentenced to five years in prison.
The case stemmed from a Sept. 10, 2021, collision on 150th Street Southwest. According to court records, after the wreck Cherise Ashley Denholm told police she and her boyfriend were arguing when he told her, “Why don’t you just kill yourself?” Denholm then drove her pickup into an oncoming car driven by 88-year-old Shirley M. Reimer.
Reimer’s back was broken in the collision and her spleen was lacerated, according to court records. She was taken to Madigan Army Medical Center, where she underwent multiple surgeries. Reimer died aged 89 on Oct. 26, 2021.
In letters to the court, Reimer’s family described her as a vibrant and independent woman who loved to garden and attend her grandchildren’s sporting events, dance recitals and concerts.
One of her daughters, Kim Culvey, wrote in a statement to the court that Reimer worked for JCPenney for more than 20 years. She said the pain of losing her mother was sometimes unbearable, and she prayed that Denholm receive the maximum punishment allowed.
“And even that won’t be enough,” Culvey wrote. “After she serves her time in jail, she will be released and let go to live her life, something my mom won’t ever get to do. We won’t be that lucky. Our punishment is forever.”
The sentence Pierce County Superior Court Judge Karena Kirkendoll imposed Friday was three years shorter than what prosecutors recommended, and it was below the standard sentencing range of 78 to 102 months.
Denholm’s defense attorney, Michael Stewart, requested a sentence of 2-and-a-half years in prison. He told The News Tribune that Denholm never intended to harm anyone but herself, and that she was sincerely remorseful, noting that she apologized to Reimer’s family “over and over” and sobbed during the sentencing hearing.
“Cherise deeply, deeply feels the pain that she’s caused, and she took on and acknowledged every last bit of it in that courtroom,” Stewart said.
Denholm was in a toxic relationship before the wreck, Stewart said, and according to his sentencing memorandum, a psychologist found that when it occurred, Denholm’s mental health was compromised by long-standing depression and PTSD. Stewart said he believed these factors and “unimaginable” trauma Denholm experienced as a child were part of the judge’s sentencing decision.
The wreck occurred about four months after she left her job as a dispatcher for South Sound 911. After the incident, Stewart said Denholm moved back to Oklahoma, where she completed court conditions related to a misdemeanor conviction for negligent driving from Washington state.
Prosecutors charged Denholm in August 2022, nearly a year after the incident occurred. A spokesperson said then that the delay was due to Reimer dying nearly seven weeks after the incident occurred, the need for special collision expertise and the time it took to complete toxicology testing.
Prior to sentencing, deputy prosecuting attorney Elizabeth Dasse wrote in court records that there was an agreement between the state and the defense that if Denholm pleaded guilty, prosecutors would not additionally charge her with second-degree murder and first-degree assault. She said the vehicular-homicide case was unlike any that had come before the court because Denholm’s actions were intentional.
“She knew her vehicle was significantly larger than the sedan she chose to drove into, and most importantly, she knew the sedan was occupied by a living, breathing human, yet she did not care,” Dasse wrote.
Denholm’s guilty-plea statement was entered Aug. 22, and it said the injuries Reimer suffered in the collision were a proximate — not direct — cause of the woman’s death. Stewart told The News Tribune there was a real issue of intervening or superseding cause of death in the case, referring to a report from the consulting firm of former Pierce County Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas Clark.
Clark found that Reimer should have survived the injuries she sustained in the wreck with proper medical support. He concluded that her death was largely due to the decision of family to withdraw medical care.
“The family said at sentencing that at first Shirley begged to live,” Stewart said.
“But after the surgeries, after the injuries she sustained during those surgeries, after the feeding tube issues and the pneumonia that happened as a result of the surgeries, the family said she begged for them to let her die,” Stewart added.
Denholm’s daughter, Culvey, wrote to the court that her family prayed for 46 days that her mother would begin to heal, but that her body gave up. Another daughter, Alana Banford, told the court that the wreck caused her mother to go from doing things she loved to being unable to move in a hospital bed.
“The horrific part of it was the randomness of it,” Banford wrote. “So, adults need to be held responsible for their actions and suffer the consequences of them and the defendant should be no exception.”
