Driver guilty in tot's death

PROVO — A jury deliberated for just more than an hour before finding an Eagle Mountain woman guilty of negligent homicide in the Sept. 17, 2003, death of a 4-year-old girl.

The five-woman and one-man jury heard from defendant Dorothy Nanette Boss, 32, on the second and final day of the trial Wednesday. She expressed sympathy for Ron and Carrie Hathaway, the parents of the fatally injured child. The two were in the car with their 4-year-old daughter, JaCee, who died in a helicopter en route to the hospital after Boss' car struck the Hathaway vehicle.

Boss will be sentenced on the class A misdemeanor on July 19 and could face up to a year in the county jail plus fines.

Carrie Hathaway said after the verdict was read that she hopes Boss receives jail time at her sentencing, an apparent change of heart from Hathaway's comments immediately following the accident. Hathaway said her change of heart is based on Boss' refusal to acknowledge that she's done anything wrong.

"The weight's been excruciating, and she could have saved us all this pain, and she didn't," Hathaway said. "She chose not to."

Precinct Court Judge Samuel McVey will impose the sentence negligent homicide. Boss is not through with court proceedings from the accident however. She still faces a class-C misdemeanor driving on a suspended license charge.

Boss testified on Wednesday that she has no memory of the events leading up to the accident, which involved her car flipping on its side in the westbound lane of U-73 near Lehi and sliding into the eastbound lane where it collided with the Hathaway car.

Boss said she wished that she had been able to express sorrow to the family.

"The hardest part has been all of the times that I was advised (by her attorneys) not to say anything to the Hathaways," she said. "Not to speak with them, not to mourn with them and express grief for them. I can't even imagine how horrible it must be."

Two accident reconstruction experts testified Boss was driving negligently on Sept. 17 and that Roy Hathaway appeared to be driving properly at the time of the accident. Both said Boss' car flipped onto it side because of an undetermined problem affecting the shoulder of the road. They agreed, however, that Boss was negligent in the handling of her vehicle, however.