Yakima man sentenced to 7.5 years for fatal crash that killed Pasco couple

A Yakima man who pleaded guilty to a crash that killed a Pasco couple was sentenced Friday to 7.5 years in prison for vehicular homicide.

The sentence for Brent A. Owens, 40, will run concurrently with his sentence for paying a teenage girl to have sex with him.

“I know what I did was wrong,” Owens said at his sentencing hearing before Yakima County Superior Court Judge Blaine Gibson.

Owens pleaded guilty in August to vehicular homicide in the deaths of JoAn and Leonard “Len” Shure on Interstate 82 east of Union Gap.

Owens was driving an industrial service truck that smashed into the Shures’ car Oct. 23, 2015.

A toxicology report indicated the presence of alprazolam, commonly marketed as Xanax, as well as codeine, morphine and methamphetamine, according to a probable cause statement.

Owens admitted in his plea agreement that his driving was affected by the drugs.

Prosecutors said they agreed to a sentence below the standard 10-year minimum, partly because of concerns that they would not be able to guarantee jurors would find that Owens was under the influence.

This story was originally published October 7, 2016 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Yakima man sentenced to 7.5 years for fatal crash that killed Pasco couple."