A motorist who struck and killed a Wayzata police officer as he removed debris from a highway last September has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison.
Fifty-four-year-old Beth Freeman of Mound pleaded guilty to criminal vehicular homicide in the death of 47-year-old officer Bill Mathews and was sentenced to 98 months on Friday. She’ll be eligible for parole in about 5½ years.
She is already incarcerated at the women’s prison in Shakopee after receiving a 17-month sentence in November for felony drug possession. That prison term will be served concurrently with Friday’s sentence.
Authorities say Freeman, who had a criminal record and no valid driver’s license, was on drugs and texting behind the wheel when she hit Mathews with her SUV the afternoon of Sept. 8. She admitted in court Friday to having used cocaine before the crash.
Freeman said she did not see Mathews “until he stood up.” However, she agreed with a Hennepin County prosecutor’s question that she was driving her car in a negligent manner.
“I hold myself accountable for this accident and the heartbreaking results that followed where a good officer in the community lost his life and, most importantly, a wife lost her husband and a son lost his father,” Freeman said when asked if she wanted to say anything.
In her victim impact statement, Mathews’ wife, Shawn, said the impact of the crash severed her husband’s spinal cord, lacerated all of his organs and broke many of his bones.
“The selfish act of getting behind the wheel without a license and (under the influence) was cold and malicious,” Shawn Mathews told Hennepin County District Judge Tamara Garcia. “Bill was taken in the sweet spot of his life.”
The couple’s son Wyatt, who was 7 at the time of his father’s death, wore a specially fitted Wayzata police officer’s uniform in court and told Garcia that he can no longer play with his father.
“That makes me feel sad and lonely,” he said. “Her actions changed my life forever.”
Gov. Mark Dayton this month signed a bill into law designating a section of U.S. 12 within Wayzata city limits as “Officer Bill Mathews Memorial Highway.”