EVERETT — Mario Urbano was outside on Grand Avenue covering his Toyota Celica with a tarp preparing for the cold weather when a woman high on methamphetamine plowed into him.
Urbano was carried some 35 feet before his body landed in the roadway. His son tried to save him but Urbano didn’t make it.
He was 56.
The driver who killed Urbano was sentenced Wednesday to 6½ years in prison. Cheryl Turner, 30, pleaded guilty earlier this month to vehicular homicide.
Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Tobin Darrow told the judge that toxicology tests revealed that Turner had a “large amount” of meth in her system at the time of the crash. Darrow asked that Turner be required to undergo a chemical dependency evaluation once she’s released from prison.
The Everett woman faced up to 8½ years behind bars.
Public defender Martin Mooney asked the judge to show his client leniency. She had quickly taken responsibility for her actions, he said. Her two primary concerns since her Dec. 8 arrest have been finding a way to apologize to the victim’s family and making sure her children are cared for while she’s in prison, Mooney said.
Turner was in tears before the start of Wednesday’s hearing in front of Superior Court Judge George Appel.
“I’m truly sorry,” she said, addressing the judge.
After her arrest, Turner told an Everett police detective that she used meth daily before going to work. She admitted to smoking the drug earlier in the day.
The detective asked Turner where she was headed before the crash. She told him she “normally smokes marijuana before bedtime but had run out so she was travelling to her friend’s house to smoke marijuana there,” Darrow wrote in court papers.
Urbano’s car was parked on the street. He often covered the Toyota, likely to avoid defrosting the windshield in the morning. Detectives believe Turner sideswiped the Toyota and a second car parked in front of it.
Turner’s Jeep Cherokee then left the roadway and crashed into the front steps of a nearby house.
She told police she didn’t see Urbano until she noticed his son giving him CPR.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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