A man called the 23-year-old woman he killed in a hit-and-run crash in Uptown "careless" just before he was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison.
John Adrian Esparza, 31, pleaded guilty Monday to felony charges of failure to stop and render aid and manslaughter in the March 2017 death of Rachel Lynn Spelman.
Before a judge sentenced Esparza, the Oklahoma man testified that he should be given probation and claimed he wasn't wholly responsible for Spelman's death because she walked into the street.
"I'm sorry she had to be so careless," Esparza said shortly after apologizing to Spelman's family.
About two dozen of Spelman's relatives and friends were in the courtroom for Monday's proceedings. They cried as her father talked on the witness stand about his daughter and laughed when her sister joked about how it was family tradition to attend Texas A&M University.
But many gasped and shook their heads while Esparza repeatedly blamed Spelman for her own death.
"We are both at fault," he said. "I promise you if she would've used that crosswalk."
Spelman was crossing Cedar Springs Road shortly after 2 a.m. March 18, 2017, when she was struck by a speeding black Honda Accord.
She was thrown onto the hood of the car and into the windshield. Her body landed 147 feet from where she was hit, investigators determined.
Esparza was driving at least 53 mph in the 30 mph zone, investigators said.
Because of how fast Esparza was driving, it's unlikely Spelman saw the Honda Accord before she started crossing the street. She was almost to the other side when she was struck, police said.
New to Dallas
Spelman had recently moved to Dallas. Her family described her as a bright and kind woman who hoped to have a family of her own one day.
"She did everything right her whole life," Tom Spelman said of his daughter.
"You let your daughter go. You release her to the world," he said. "And then you get the call."
Tom Spelman described waking up to his wife's phone around 5 a.m. March 18. Cheryl Spelman put the phone on speaker, and he heard the words, "and she did not make it."
On Monday, after Esparza repeatedly deflected the blame, prosecutor Sherre Thomas stood in front of the witness stand where Esparza sat and held up a photo of Spelman's body in the street.
"I want you to see what you did. That's who you left in the street," she said.
"I understand that but you gotta understand ..." Esparza started to respond.
"I'm doing the questions here, not you," Thomas interrupted.
Esparza later tried to explain that he "didn't even clean up the glass in the car" and wasn't trying to hide what happened.
"The blood was still on it," he said.
Fled to Oklahoma
Esparza drove off after hitting the woman. He replaced his windshield and then left the car at an Oklahoma motel.
He had been drinking with family at Concrete Cowboy in the hours before the crash, but Esparza claimed he was not drunk because he had a long drive back to Oklahoma.
When he was interviewed by investigators days later, he said he had planned to turn himself in but first wanted to spend more time with his family.
Defense attorney Kyle Steele argued that Spelman shared the blame for the crash because she was crossing a dimly lit street away from a crosswalk. And, he said, she was intoxicated and "walked in front of the car."
Steele asked State District Judge Carter Thompson to sentence Esparza to 10 years' probation.
The evidence showed Spelman didn't jump out in front of the car, the prosecutor said. The woman was trying to be responsible by walking home instead of driving, like Esparza was, Thomas said.
She said Esparza's criminal history and shoddy driving record prove he wouldn't follow the rules of probation. Esparza was previously arrested for drunken driving, driving without a driver's license and reckless driving.
"He had just gotten his license reinstated when he went out and killed Rachel Spelman," Thomas said.
The prosecutor asked Thompson to give Esparza the maximum sentence — in part for his reckless driving history and "especially for his attitude."
She said anything less than prison time would show that "all you have to do if you're in an accident and you've been drinking is you just leave the scene."
Thompson sentenced Esparza to 20 years on the failure to stop and render aid charge and 10 years on the manslaughter charge. He will serve the sentences concurrently.
In her honor
The Spelman family has started scholarship funds in Rachel Lynn's name and celebrated their first Christmas without her last year by opening a time capsule she created in the eighth grade.
Cheryl Spelman carried the shoe box she found in her daughter's closet to the witness stand Monday. It was a time capsule that wasn't meant to be opened yet. Eighth-grader Rachel Spelman was writing to a 20 years older version of herself.
The mother pulled out a few trinkets from the box and then started reading from a letter her daughter wrote to herself.
"Well, I hope all your dreams came true," teenage Rachel Spelman wrote. "I hope everything is going good and nothing too horrible is going on or has happened."
Spelman's and Esparza's family wiped away tears while Cheryl Spelman read her daughter's words.
"I can't wait to see what my life and what my family looks like," Rachel Spelman wrote.
