CASTLE ROCK — The retired Army colonel who struck and killed a state trooper last year while driving home drunk from a Denver Broncos game was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison.
Eric Peter Henderson, 52, also was ordered to serve five years of mandatory parole before he was led out of a Douglas County courtroom in handcuffs to the dismay of his supporters, some of whom were in military uniform.
He mouthed, “I love you” to family members sitting in the gallery behind him before being led away.
The sentence came despite pleas from Henderson’s friends, colleagues and family that he be spared a prison term for the probation-eligible charges that he admitted to. Henderson said he did not know he had hit State Trooper Jaimie Jursevics when he kept driving after the November collision on Interstate 25 in Castle Rock.
But District Judge Richard Caschette said he didn’t find those claims truthful.
“I don’t believe that the defendant was not aware that he had hit someone,” Caschette said. “I just don’t believe it.”
The sentencing came after about four hours of emotional testimony from two dozen supporters of Jursevics and of Henderson before a packed courtroom.
On Nov. 15, Henderson killed Jursevics as she tried to wave him over to the side of the road following citizen reports that he was driving drunk. After the collision, prosecutors say Henderson attempted to hide evidence, including bottles, after he exited the interstate after the crash and drove away on a side road.
Henderson had spent the day drinking at a Broncos game in Denver before the collision. District Attorney George Brauchler said Henderson’s blood-alcohol content was estimated at 0.199 percent at the time of the crash, nearly four times the legal impaired limit of .05 for drivers in Colorado. At .08 drivers are considered legally drunk.
Henderson was still legally drunk more than five hours after the wreck.
“I personally would have liked to have seen a bigger sentence,” Brauchler said after the hearing, “a sentence that would have shocked the conscience and sent a message to mothers and fathers and sons and daughters all over this community (that) if you drive drunk and kill someone, especially a member of law enforcement, you should expect to forfeit your freedom.”
Henderson pleaded guilty last month to vehicular homicide while driving under the influence and tampering with physical evidence, both felonies. Prosecutors dismissed a felony count of leaving the scene of an accident involving death and two misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence.
In his first public comments on the fatal crash, Henderson made a tearful apology to Jursevics’ husband and family during the hearing, saying he accepts responsibility for the crash. He explained that he is not the man the media has made him out to be and that he was ashamed.
Henderson specifically addressed Jursevics’ husband, Didzis, turning around to face him in the gallery.
“My soul breaks for you, sir,” Henderson said through sobs. “And if I could trade places with your wife, I would.”
Jursevics’ mother said after the hearing that she didn’t find Henderson’s apology moving.
“When we leave here, we are going to the cemetery to visit my daughter,” she said after the sentencing. “It’s a pain. It’s an emptiness. It’s a sadness.”
She added: “This is all because of somebody’s decision to drink and get behind the wheel of a truck and drive. My daughter was a Colorado trooper. She died protecting and serving. She died doing her job. She died doing what she loved.”
Jursevics, 33, who joined the State Patrol in January 2011 and began working at the agency’s Castle Rock office in 2014, is survived by her husband and daughter Morgan, who was 8 months old when her mother died.
After the sentencing, authorities allowed members of the media to view the Dodge Ram 4500 flatbed truck — described by prosecutors as a 4-ton killing machine — that Henderson was driving when he hit Jursevics.
DA George Brauchler stands in front of Henderson's truck pic.twitter.com/GBM4QN0IVt
— Jesse Aaron Paul ☀ (@JesseAPaul) June 28, 2016
The white vehicle, sitting in a Castle Rock garage, had a large dent in the hood and clear damage to its grill.
“How could you not know you hit someone?” a state trooper said as reporters surveyed the scene.
Henderson’s lawyers painted the retired soldier as a war hero who served several tours in combat and was diagnosed in 2013 with post-traumatic stress disorder. They said he had no criminal record and that he has been deeply affected by the case.
Those who testified on his behalf, including commanding officers and subordinates from his time in the military, called the collision that killed Jursevics an accident and explained that Henderson was one of the best men and soldiers they had ever known.
Henderson’s defense team also argued Jursevics was in the middle of the interstate when she was struck after Henderson swerved to avoid a car stopped in traffic. Henderson’s attorneys explained that authorities admitted, too, that Jursevics was not wearing a protective vest that she was supposed to have on, according to State Patrol policy.
But Judge Caschette rejected the notion that Jursevics was somehow responsible for her death, saying, “The defendant was the catalyst of this tragedy, not the victim or other drivers at the scene.”
