Stephanie Carlson volunteered to take an 8-hour shift at a care facility for the elderly on Thanksgiving Day 2016 so a co-worker could spend the day with their young children.
The elderly residents needed company, too, Carlson told her family.
There would be many more Thanksgivings, her father, Steven Carlson, said he thought at the time. But just days later on Dec. 1, a woman driving 82 mph in a 50 mph zone slammed into the car Stephanie was riding in, killing her and Bridget Giere, both 16, and badly injuring Samantha Redden, then 17.
The girls were going to Mounds View High School when Rachel Kayl crashed into their vehicle on Hwy. 96 at Old Hwy. 10 in Arden Hills, sending it rolling several times.
"I see no signs of remorse or sorrow for the accident she caused," Steven Carlson said at Kayl's sentencing Wednesday afternoon. "No family should have to go through this hell."
Kayl, 33, of Maple Grove, was sentenced in Ramsey County District Court to 10 years' probation for the crash, and could face nearly 10 years in prison if she violates the terms of her probation. Her driver's license will be revoked for six years.
Judge Thomas Gilligan Jr. also sentenced Kayl to serve a year in the county workhouse, but he said he would not require her to turn herself in until December 2019 because he had several questions about the county's ability to house her due to her several unspecified physical and psychological medical conditions.
Gilligan plans to convene a review hearing on Nov. 29, 2019, to hear from Kayl's doctors and corrections officials about how she can be accommodated in the workhouse.