Costa Mesa man gets 30 years to life in prison for crash that killed woman and 2-year-old granddaughter

A Costa Mesa man has been sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for triggering an Irvine crash that killed a woman and her 2-year-old granddaughter.

Alec Scott Abraham, 25, was sentenced Friday after being convicted Feb. 4 in his second trial on two counts of second-degree murder in the June 10, 2015, crash that killed Katherine Hampton, 54, of Lake Forest and granddaughter Kaydence Hampton. The girl’s mother, Megan, and then-7-year-old brother were seriously injured.

As has been the case at other hearings involving the defendant, Abraham was repeatedly admonished Friday by Orange County Superior Court Judge Cheri Pham for outbursts and interrupting the proceedings.

There was some confusion over whether Abraham wanted to represent himself and fire his attorney Eric Mayeda Renslo and delay sentencing.

When Pham would not allow rescheduling of the sentencing, Abraham said, “I want to be sentenced today,” even as Renslo made a verbal motion for a new trial, arguing that the judge should have let the defendant dismiss Renslo as his attorney and that evidence was insufficient that Abraham showed implied malice in the crime. Pham denied the motion.

“I’m a victim in this case,” Abraham said.

Three family members of the crash victims told Pham how the deaths affected them.

They said their relatives had been shopping for bridesmaid dresses the night of the crash.

“What should have been remembered as a joyous evening spent with my mother, my two kids and my two soon-to-be sisters-in-law ... will now be remembered as my worst nightmare that I can never wake up from because of you, Alec Abraham,” Megan Hampton said.

“Watching your behavior ... clearly shows that you could care less about taking the lives of my mother and daughter,” she said.

“The day the guilty verdict was given and you were being put in handcuffs, yelling you wanted to hug your little brother one more time struck a nerve with me,” she added. “You will get the opportunity to see and hold your little brother again, but you didn’t stop to think that my family or myself will never again get to hold or hug my daughter or my mother again.”

Megan Hampton said her mother was “selfless and such a loving and caring person. She was my best friend, the glue to our family and she was our everything.”

She said her son has endured “pain, scars and trauma,” but she added, “I thank my lucky stars every day that he wasn’t taken from me as well and he fought to stay on this Earth with me.”

Megan Hampton’s sister-in-law Shellbee Hampton said Katherine Hampton “was the mother I never had growing up” and added, “To say that Kaydence and I had a special bond would be an understatement.”

“That little girl was going to move mountains as she got older, and you took that,” Shellbee Hampton said.

Abraham was speeding in a Ford Mustang when it T-boned the car Katherine Hampton was driving, according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Whitney Bokosky.

He had been driving on Alton Parkway when he swerved into a left-turn lane around idling traffic at a red light and slammed into Hampton’s Chevrolet Cruze at Barranca Parkway, Bokosky said. An event data recorder in the Mustang showed it was traveling at least 75 mph at the time, she said.

“The EDR showed he was accelerating at 100%. That means he had his foot to the floor at the moment of impact,” she said.

Abraham got out of the Mustang after the crash and checked on the victims before walking away, Bokosky said.

Another motorist at the scene told investigators that Abraham asked to borrow his phone and then fled, Bokosky said.

Abraham called his father to pick him up, and he was arrested a day later in Costa Mesa, the prosecutor said.

Abraham’s first trial in the case ended in a mistrial April 3 when a juror changed her mind — and her vote — right after a guilty verdict had been read.

Daily Pilot staff contributed to this report.

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