SCRANTON -- It's been more than three years since a construction truck crashed into a car along a highway in Dunmore, killing a brother and sister.
That driver was sentenced Monday morning in Lackawanna County court.
Twins Bill and Lynn McKernan of Rochester were killed instantly. They were on their way to their birthday celebration in New York City.
Now three years later, the driver of that dump truck who admitted to being under the influence and having a seizure at the time of the crash, is not receiving the hefty prison sentence you might think.
"I don't want to see him in the news again. I hope he succeeds. I hope he gets better. I hope he does better for everyone," said the victims' sister Liz Graupman.
The McKernan family agreed to a plea deal that, along with a few months in prison, sends Wayne Kichar through two years of intensive rehab, then a judge sentenced him to an additional 13 years of probation, throughout all of which he can't drive.
The McKernasn had hoped for more serious charges for Kichar but prosecutors say there's no proof that Kichar's drug use led to his seizure.
"Ethically we're bound to not bring charges that we can't prove and the worst thing for us would be to just charge whatever we wanted just to make the victim's happy, and we can't do that. We always manage people's expectations on the front end and tell them exactly what we can charge," explained Lackawanna County Assistant District Attorney Bob Klein.
The McKernans say at the very least, they hope Kichar will not hurt anyone else.
"They say time heals all wounds but that is not true, or at least I haven't found it to be true at this point. We will just take it day by day," said Bill McKernan's widow Melissa.
"That's something that we've learned throughout this whole process, that the consequences of the actions will never even come close to the actions that caused the loss we've all experienced," said the victims' brother-in-law Dustin Graupman.
Under this rehabilitative sentence, Kichar will behind bars for a few more months and then move to a halfway house.
