Truck driver gets maximum sentence for crash that killed 5 on I-70

A Colorado truck driver was sentenced to prison on vehicular homicide charges following a multiple fatality crash that happened in Kansas in 2017.

Fifty-nine year old truck driver Kenny Ford was recently sentenced to five years in the Leavenworth County jail. The sentence is actually five single year sentences to be served consecutively.

Ford previously pled no contest to five counts of vehicular homicide earlier this year.

The fatal crash occurred in July 2017 near Bonner Springs, Kansas.

Ford reportedly did not slow for traffic on westbound I-70 and hit an SUV and then two cars.

One of the cars was pinned underneath Ford’s truck and caught fire.

Teresa Butler, 61, Karen Lynn Kennedy, 63, Sheldon Cohen, 83, Virginia Cohen, 79, and Ricardo Mireles, 38, died as a result of the crash.

Drugs and alcohol weren’t a factor in the crash, but it isn’t clear why Ford didn’t stop.

“This is as stiff of a sentence as one can get for a vehicular homicide,” Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson told the Kansas City Star. “The fact that all five are consecutive would probably be one of the toughest you would see, and for good reason due to the amount of people that died and destruction to the vehicles.” The news outlet reports that vehicular homicide is a misdemeanor charge in Kansas and that five years was the maximum penalty.

The families of the victims have also entered into a lawsuit against Daimler Trucks North America LLC for failing to install collision avoidance technology on their trucks that could have prevented the fatal pileup.