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A victim of the same crash talked about dragging her mother out of a burning car then trying to put out the flames that engulfed her body.
The husband of the burned woman spoke of revenge.
"I would sell my soul to the devil to let you burst into flames," William Marshman told Ryan Lebus on Wednesday in Lancaster County Court.
Lebus, 25, of Paradise, was sentenced to 5 to 12 years in state prison for driving drunk and causing the fiery accident that killed a mother of three, left a grandmother permanently disabled and injured that woman's daughter on Route 30 near Gap.
Lancaster County Judge Jeffery Wright sentenced Lebus after hearing a torrent of grief-stricken testimony from victims' family members about the accident, which happened on Black Friday in 2008. All three victims were returning home from Christmas shopping.
"No one on this earth could hate you more than I do," Marshman told Lebus, who was standing just a few feet away from him.
Behind Lebus sat Marshman's wife, Priscilla, 64, her wheelchair nearby. Priscilla Marshman, of Parkesburg, still is recovering from the injuries she suffered in the three-car crash.
Part of her leg was amputated, she lost part of her hand, and she suffered horrible burns after being pulled from a flaming car by her daughter, Cheryl Baranzano, 46, of Cochranville, who also was burned and injured in the crash.
Kristy Noel, 30, of Gap, was driving another car involved in the wreck. She died at the scene, her body so incinerated that, according to her family, a funeral director warned them against viewing it.
Police said Lebus caused the crash by driving drunk on Route 30 in Salisbury Township. As he headed west, Lebus' car first struck Noel's car. The impact sent Noel's car into the eastbound lane, where it hit the car driven by Baranzano.
The prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Christine Wilson, had asked Wright to impose a sentence of 15 to 30 years because of the horrific nature of the accident.
After the sentencing, Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman said that prosecutors would take the very rare step of filing a motion asking the judge to reconsider his sentence, which they believe is too light.
For his part, Lebus looked overwhelmed at his sentencing. He gave a brief statement.
"Anything I say will be inadequate," he said quietly. "There are no words to describe the true pain and sorrow I feel knowing I am responsible for these people's lives."
"For that," he said, "I am sorry."
Family members of all three victims came to the sentencing, as did members of Lebus' family. So many people showed up, in fact, that some were seated in the courtroom's jury box.
They included Jaclyn Ink, Noel's sister, who told the court that her entire family was shattered by the accident.
Noel, a nursing assistant, a mother of three and a stepmother of three, had just gotten married 28 days before the accident, her sister said. She was on her way home from buying a toolbox as a Christmas present for her new husband, John.
The two had talked on the phone before the accident. She asked her husband to wait on their porch but to close his eyes so he wouldn't see his gift.
Ink told the court that her family will never forget the looks on the faces of Noel's three children, now 5 to 14, when they learned their mother had died.
"Our hearts will forever be empty without Kristy in our lives," she said.
Marshman first read a statement from his wife, noting that before the crash she was an active person, walking, planting flowers and taking care of her 90-year-old mother.
"Ryan Lebus, thanks for ruining my life" and the lives of everyone affected by the accident, she said.
Her husband then angrily read his own statement, outlining his wife's many injuries.
She spent 190 days in the hospital and in rehabilitation after the accident with broken bones and burns so bad that her flesh had been consumed to the bone in some areas.
At times during her hospitalization his wife cried, hallucinated and asked him if she was having a nightmare, so intense was her pain, Marshman said.
Her medical bills totaled more than $6 million, with the family paying $12,000 out of its own pocket. Marshman eventually had to quit his job to take care of his wife.
"The remainder of our lives has been ruined by an irresponsible drunk named Ryan Lebus," he said bitterly, adding that he would never forgive Lebus.
Cheryl Baranzano asked Robin Piacine, the state advocate for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, to read her statement in court.
Baranzano described how she was trapped in her burning car after the accident. The doors would not open, so she crawled out the back, only to realize that her mother had not escaped, she said.
"My mother was burning alive right in front of my eyes," she said in the statement.
She went back through the flames to pull out her mother, who then lay on the road saying, "It hurts!"
"I remember these things every single day," she said. "When I think about that night, it sucks all the air out of my lungs."
"Things will never be the same for any of us," she said in the statement, adding, "I can never be the same person I was."
Her husband, Gerald, said his wife has struggled to recover from the emotional pain. She has moved out of her family home, he said.
"Please show Ryan Lebus the same mercy he showed the victims of this crash," he told Wright.
Wilson reiterated the pain Lebus had caused his victims, saying he "created a fireball of destruction."
She acknowledged 40 character reference letters that Lebus' supporters had written to the judge, but said, "It's outrageous to think you could explain away what he did."
"If the facts of any case call for a maximum sentence," she said, "this is the case."
Acknowledging the grief in the courtroom, defense attorney Michael Winters said no sentence would be enough to heal the families.
He also said he understands why the families do not want to hear anything about Lebus or what he has to say.
But the letters written on Lebus' behalf are a necessary part of the case, Winters said.
A judge needs to hear from all people involved in the case before trying to decide a just punishment, the defense attorney said.
Lebus was a law-abiding and good man who "made the worst decision ever, to drink and drive," Winters said.
For his part, Wright said Lebus' reckless actions and a "moment of stupidity and immaturity" forever changed the lives of the families involved.
"What you did deserves punishment," he said.
Prosecutors thought it deserved a much stricter punishment.
The sentence Wright gave Lebus was within the sentencing guidelines' "standard," or middle, range, Stedman said.
While judges can't go beyond a maximum sentence, they may go beyond sentencing guidelines if they believe a case warrants it, he said.
"We believed and still believe that nothing short of the maximum sentence applied in this case," Stedman said.
