Christine and Jeff Stokowski, parents of Shane Stokowski, talk about their reaction to the sentencing of Timothy McShane for killing their son. McShane was sentenced to 16 years in prison on June 8, 2016, for running over Shane Stokowski, a good Samaritan who tried to stop him from driving from a bar while drunk in 2014.
Steve SchmadekeContact ReporterChicago Tribune
Christine Stokowski's hands shook as she tearfully told a Cook County judge Wednesday how she fell to her knees on the side of Interstate 55 two years ago and cried when a doctor called with the news her oldest son had been killed by a drunken driver.
She would later learn that her son, Shane Stokowski, an outgoing 33-year-old graphic designer just seven months away from his wedding, was a good Samaritan who had been run over while trying to stop an intoxicated man from leaving a bar in Chicago's West Town neighborhood.
Speaking at the sentencing for the driver, Timothy McShane, Stokowski said her family as well as her son's fiancee are still struggling with the loss. The fiancee, Erin Harvill, went from planning her wedding to picking out the casket her fiance was buried in.
"I think of Shane every second of every day," said Stokowski, clad in a white T-shirt with her son's engagement photo on the front.
Judge Lawrence Flood sentenced McShane, 44, to 16 years in prison, calling his actions "outrageous and extreme."
McShane's blood wasn't drawn at a hospital until about eight hours later, but his blood-alcohol content still tested at 0.225, nearly three times the legal limit of 0.08 percent, prosecutors said.
McShane, who was convicted in March of aggravated DUI and reckless homicide, tearfully apologized and acknowledged his struggles with alcohol.
Though he did not know Stokowski, a clearly intoxicated McShane shook his hand and those of his friends as he left the Aberdeen Tap on a Saturday afternoon in March 2014.
Shane Stokowski, 33, left, was killed after prosecutors say he tried to stop Timothy McShane, right, from driving drunk. Stokowski was carried by McShane's car for nearly a block before he fell off the car. McShane has been charged with reckless homicide. (Family photo; Chicago Police Department)
Stokowski and his friends were able to persuade him to get out of his girlfriend's SUV, but McShane later sneaked back outside and started trying to drive away, hitting the cars parked in front of and behind him, according to trial testimony.
"C'mon, man, don't do it," an eyewitness reported that Stokowski pleaded in a genial tone with McShane, whose license was suspended after a history of drunken driving arrests. McShane instead hit the gas pedal.
Police found marks on the road-salt-coated driver's side of the black Nissan that showed where Stokowski's hand had slipped off the door, according to trial testimony.
Stokowski's younger brother, Patrick, who was to be best man at his brother's wedding, was so overwhelmed by grief and depression that he had to quit his job, he told a judge Wednesday.
"All we have now are memories of Shane, and those memories are starting to fade," he said.
Stokowski's sister, Sheila, gripped the side of the podium and tried to hold back tears as she lamented the loss of a much-older brother whom she had just started getting to know as an adult.
Drunken driver convicted of reckless homicide in death of good Samaritan
McShane apologized to the family after his mother told the judge her family has a long history of alcoholism.
"I'm terribly, terribly sorry that Shane's not in your life," McShane said, breaking down in tears as he turned to face Stokowski's family. "I wish I could take it back."
McShane said much of what happened that day was still unclear to him. After Stokowski's death, he entered an alcohol treatment program at Normandy House in Elmwood Park.
"I realized that anything negative in my life was caused by alcohol," he said.
In asking for less than the 29-year maximum sentence, McShane's attorney, Thomas Brandstrader, said his client could be rehabilitated.
"He's not the same person who let alcohol control him," he said.
But Assistant State's Attorney Martin Moore said McShane blew off numerous warnings that he had a problem with alcohol, citing three previous DUI arrests and the loss of his truck-driving job after failing a Breathalyzer test at work.
Speaking to reporters after the sentencing hearing, Stokowski's family members said they were satisfied with a sentence that will keep McShane behind bars for years.
Christine Stokowski said Harvill, her son's former fiancee, told her when picking out Stokowski's casket that she wanted her own ashes at her death placed inside with his remains. But his parents assured Harvill, whose wedding dress arrived the week of the funeral, that she would be happy again.
"She's young, she has a long life ahead of her," his father, Jeff Stokowski, said of Harvill, who now lives in California. "We want her to find someone just as good as our son."