Emotional Hearing Ends in Prison Term for Drunk Driver Who Killed Girl, 8

In a hearing that a prosecutor characterized as the most emotional he had ever seen, a 62-year-old Sepulveda man was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for striking and killing an 8-year-old girl while driving drunk.

The victim’s mother, Claudia Morales, gave defendant Thomas Michael Murray a Bible before he was sentenced for killing Jessica Morales on July 25 in North Hollywood.

“It was one of the most emotionally draining hearings I’ve ever been at because the loss was so great--an 8-year-old daughter--and yet the victim’s parents were such compassionate people,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Dver, who prosecuted the case. “And the defendant was not a horrible or a bad person but a man with a serious drinking problem who acted incredibly irresponsibly.”

Murray was driving east on Victory Boulevard when he swerved his vehicle across three lanes of traffic, drove onto the sidewalk and struck the girl. She was thrown about 60 feet and was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Fighting to talk through tears, Claudia Morales of North Hollywood told Murray that she does not hate him for killing her daughter. But she said she hoped that he would be punished because he had caused herself and her family so much pain.

Murray, who according to a probation report has not held a steady job in several years, pleaded guilty before his preliminary hearing Aug. 18 to one count of vehicular manslaughter in the death. No special sentencing favors were promised in exchange for the plea, Dver said.

Dver characterized Murray as “extremely remorseful about what he had done.” The probation report quoted Murray as saying he feels intense guilt.

Murray’s attorney, Robert Crider, asked the court to give Murray probation and sentence him to an alcohol treatment program. But Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Kathryne A. Stoltz said she believed that the seriousness of the crime mandated a prison sentence.

Murray, who has two prior drunk-driving convictions in another state, could have received a maximum sentence of four years in prison, but Stoltz said she balanced aggravating and mitigating factors in determining the sentence. The aggravating factors were the two earlier convictions and that Murray was driving without a license and was an alcoholic. Mitigating factors were Murray’s remorse, his age and the lack of a criminal record other than the two drunk-driving convictions.