Driver released from prison
WESTVILLE, Ind. -- A Michigan truck driver walked out of prison a free man Friday after serving two years behind bars for the traffic deaths of four Taylor University students -- including one whose identity was mistaken -- and a university staff member.
Robert F. Spencer, Canton Township, near Detroit, was released Friday morning after completing a year in state prison for his convictions on charges of reckless homicide and criminal recklessness. Spokesman Doug Garrison of the Indiana Department of Correction confirmed the release.
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Spencer had served about a year in jail before his sentencing.
The case drew national attention when it was learned that a coroner had misidentified one of the dead students as one of five others who survived.
The daughters of Taylor employee Monica Felver, who died in the crash, said it was too soon for Spencer to be released.
"One second of him falling asleep, and we will suffer for the rest of our lives," Hope Beckley, Montpelier, and Amy Atkins and Kelly Montgomery, Hartford City, said in a statement released Thursday to the Hartford City News-Times.
"Him getting out after a year is a slap of more pain for us, but no time would ever have been enough time," the statement said. "He has sentenced all the families to a lifetime of hurt, loneliness and complete loss."
Investigators said Spencer had fallen asleep at the wheel after he had driven at least nine hours more than allowed under federal rules.
Spencer pleaded guilty last year and was given an eight-year prison sentence with four years suspended. Jay Circuit Judge Brian Hutchison could have sentenced Spencer to as much as 24 years in prison under a deal with prosecutors, but he noted Spencer's remorse and cooperation.
Spencer also received credit for good behavior and nearly a year already served in jail before he was sentenced in August 2007.
Later Friday, Spencer reported to the Jay County probation office and asked for his probation to be transferred to Michigan.
The judge also ordered the high school dropout, as conditions of his probation, to earn his GED within a year of his release from prison, to pay a $5,000 fine and to serve 100 hours of community service for each of the five lives he took. He also cannot drive professionally while on probation.
"I know I'll have to deal with this the rest of my life," Spencer said at his sentencing hearing.
Spencer's truck collided with the Taylor van about 10 miles from the Upland campus as students and staff were returning from Fort Wayne on April 26, 2006. Taylor is an evangelical Christian liberal arts school of 1,850 students about midway between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.
A coroner misidentified one of the students killed -- Laura VanRyn, 22, Caledonia, Mich. -- as one of the survivors, then-19-year-old Whitney Cerak, Gaylord, Mich.
The mix-up wasn't discovered until VanRyn's family realized that the injured woman they thought was their recovering daughter actually was Cerak, whose family thought she had died in the crash. Cerak has since recovered and returned to school.
Also killed in the crash were students Bradley J. Larson, 22, Elm Grove, Wis.; Elizabeth A. Smith, 22, Mount Zion, Ill.; and Laurel E. Erb, 20, St. Charles, Ill.; and employee Felver, 54, Hartford City.
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