Four Years & $40,000: Twin Sister Sentenced For Crash Which Took Two Amish Girls’ Lives (Updated: Samantha Apologizes)
Samantha Jo Petersen’s sentence was delivered earlier today. Samantha pleaded guilty in July for her role in a September 2023 crash which killed two Amish girls in Fillmore County, Minnesota.
Samantha was driving an SUV which rear-ended the buggy the girls were traveling in along with two other siblings.
Irma Miller (11) and Wilma Miller (7) lost their lives that morning, while on their daily buggy journey to school. Samantha admitted to being under the influence of meth at the time of the crash.
Samantha’s sister Sarah Beth attempted to take the blame for the crash by pretending to be her sister (something they had done before), but the ruse was discovered. Sarah Beth ended up serving time earlier this year for her part.
Now Samantha’s sentence has come down. We already knew, based on plea agreement details released in June, that it wouldn’t be particularly long – a maximum of four years – and it could potentially be quite short, at about a year.
And her lawyers had been arguing that she should serve less than a year, drawing attention to her sense of remorse, and also that:
she grew up in a household that normalized alcohol addiction, and Petersen’s own struggle with substance abuse was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic which began three and a half years before the Fillmore County crash.
Petersen also completed several rounds of inpatient and outpatient treatment, eventually reducing her risk of continued substance use over the past two years, per her attorneys.
However, it looks like she got about the maximum she could have gotten within the terms of the plea deal. More from ABC 6 News:
(ABC 6 News) – Samantha Jo Petersen was sentenced to 4 years (48 months) at the MN Correctional Facility in Shakopee after killing two children and injuring others in a 2023 crash with an Amish buggy.
Petersen must also pay nearly $40,000 in restitution to the family of her victims.
I doubt there will be many who see this as harsh as far as sentencing. I do hope she can continue the positive trajectory that seems to be outlined in the court documents submitted by her legal team.
Samantha was described as “extremely remorseful” in those documents, which were a part of the argument for lighter sentencing.
Maybe now that the sentencing has wrapped up, she’ll be able to apologize to the Miller family, assuming she still hasn’t done so. It would probably do some amount of good for everyone involved.
Update: Apology in Court
Samantha does make a statement, seen in this video below from sentencing, that “I want to begin by saying how deeply sorry I am to Sarah, Menno, and the entire Miller family”.
And further:
“I stand forward today to take full accountability and acknowledge that I should have never been driving on the morning of September 25, 2023. The loss of Irma and Wilma, and the harm that I have caused to and Rosanna, are entirely my fault. No words or apologies can bring back Irma and Wilma, but I need you to know how truly deeply sorry I am…”
She continues with her voice betraying a lot of emotion. “Every day I wish it would have been me instead of them” she says, voice cracking.
She sounds sincere…I hope it gives the Miller family some sort of comfort, if that is even the right word. As far as I know this is the first public apology she’s made, and was probably prevented from that by the legal implications.
I focus on this because the girls’ father Menno told a reporter, not long after the accident, that an apology – “[would] go a long ways…Yes it would.”
The family might have appreciated getting it earlier in a different context. But as I said above, hopefully this still does some good for everyone involved, including Samantha.
Samantha Jo Petersen
Gee, to kill two children and injure two more & receive the “gift” of a 48 month (or shorter) sentence . . . Wonder what that’s like?? I’ll never know because I don’t take drugs! And she didn’t “admit” to anything . . . !! She and her twin sister LIED about it all when first questioned by police. Oh, boo frigging hoo . . . a sad childhood. With the people I’ve worked with professionally over the years, I could write volumes about childhood traumas, yet none of those folks ever drove after drinking & drugging the night away. She even told others, “I killed two Amish kids today, but I don’t really care . . . “ And her court “statement” was obviously written by her legal counsel. I have ZERO sympathy for this little witch. Four years behind bars won’t do a dang thing with regard to her drug addiction nor will a $40,000 fine. The Millers will never see one red cent. Samantha doesn’t WANT to be sober. Remember, dear readers, both she and her evil twin have been in trouble with law enforcement before. And I am thoroughly disgusted by my own state’s complete lack of the intestinal fortitude necessary to strengthen (even lengthen) laws to keep people safe here in the Gopher State. I’ll be contacting my state representatives soon about this. COUNT on it!
Hopefully this is closure
I hope that the apology and resolution of the case do make some difference to the family, and I hope she is genuine and does manage to turn her life around now. Whether someone is to blame for their addictions or not, it’s usually a very difficult thing to sort out.
However, it does seem to me that four years is not actually that much for causing two deaths via serious negligence, (though I realise that is complicated by the fact that extenuating circumstances have to do with the capacity someone has for responsibility rather than with the severity of the crime, and both need to be taken into account for justice. I do think people massively underestimated the immense damage done to various groups of vulnerable people by lockdown policies: I speak as someone whose health was utterly wrecked by the imposed isolation and who lost most of my mobility through needing continuity to maintain it).
I also feel that even if her remorse is basically genuine, if she was hindered by legal implications from making an apology sooner, she does not seem to have shown the, uh, QUALITY of remorse that causes someone to put the needs of the people they’ve wronged for truth and justice before the consequences to themselves. I really wouldn’t go by someone asserting that they don’t care in the shock of the aftermath, though – I think that is actually often more likely to suggest the contrary (I think “doth protest too much” is a real thing).