Student sentenced for fatal crash

DILLON (AP) — A Montana Tech student has been sentenced to four years behind bars for a May 2012 drunken driving crash that killed his roommate and left two other passengers with permanent injuries.

District Judge Loren Tucker said he struggled with the sentence of 20 years, with 16 suspended, right up until he announced it Thursday, The Montana Standard reported.

“We had a glimpse into the kind of anguish we wish didn’t exist in the world,” he said. “It’s a mind-wrenching, gut-wrenching and heart-wrenching case.”

Tucker recommended that Myles Kittleson of Glasgow begin his sentence at the state addiction treatment center in Warm Springs, followed by time at a pre-release center.

Kittleson, 22, pleaded guilty in May to vehicular homicide while under the influence for the May 3, 2012, crash. The car hit a rock wall near Divide and rolled several times, killing 21-year-old Spencer Lewis of Cut Bank.

Kittleson also pleaded guilty to three counts of negligent vehicular assault for injuries suffered by his three passengers. The plea agreement had recommended a five-year prison sentence.

The father of passenger Andrea Spicher of Kalispell testified she had to learn to walk and talk again after suffering serious head injuries, Passenger Calven Goza of Greeley, Colo., suffered a severed spinal cord and is a paraplegic.

Dan Spicher testified Thursday that his daughter has told him: “I feel like I have been robbed — robbed of my mind and my body,” and, “He was driving — why isn’t he going through this hell?”

Spicher said his daughter still has seizures and afterward has said: “This is no way to live.”

Tucker ordered Kittleson to pay $247,000 in restitution to Spicher’s family.

Goza did not attend the sentencing, but told the Standard in April that he didn’t want Kittleson to go to jail.

“I think he’s paid enough already,” Goza said at the time.

The fifth passenger, Taylor DeBruycker of Fort Benton, was wearing a seat belt and was not seriously injured.

“He’s the only one who remembers everything he had to see,” Kittleson said. “There’s nothing I can do to change that. Words cannot describe how sorry I am. I apologize from the bottom of my heart.”

Kittleson also suffered a brain injury in the crash and spent eight months in various hospitals. He, like Goza, has returned to his studies at Montana Tech.

“It’s been a long fight,” his father, Rocky Kittleson testified. “I know what you’re going through. I’ve never prayed for Myles and not prayed for Andrea.”