A woman who crashed into a line of stopped vehicles while text-messaging on her cell phone has been sentenced to six years in a California prison for killing a woman in one of the vehicles.
Investigators said Deborah Matis-Engle was speeding while text messaging when she slammed into the vehicles stopped at a construction zone in August 2007. Deborah Matis-Engle was sentenced March 3, 2009, by a judge in Redding, California.
Shasta County prosecutor Stephanie Bridgett said the 49-year-old woman had paid several bills by cell phone in the moments before the crash.
She was in the middle of one of those transactions when she struck a vehicle that burst into flames, killing 46-year-old Petra Winn. The defense is expected to appeal the court’s decision.
