{"id":1659,"date":"2013-01-04T10:46:17","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T18:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/man-pleads-guilty-to-july-crash-that-killed-kent-teacher\/"},"modified":"2016-10-21T19:10:38","modified_gmt":"2016-10-22T02:10:38","slug":"man-pleads-guilty-to-july-crash-that-killed-kent-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/news\/man-pleads-guilty-to-july-crash-that-killed-kent-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"Man pleads guilty to July crash that killed Kent teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><p>A Bonney Lake man who struck and killed Kent elementary school teacher Stacy Ankerfelt last summer could face more than 10 years in jail.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>Samuel Cruz pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and driving while under the influence in court on Wednesday. King County prosecutors will recommend that Cruz serve a little more than eight years at his sentencing on Jan. 25, although the judge could sentence Cruz to 8\u00bd to 10\u00bd years in jail.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>Cruz is charged with hitting Ankerfelt with his 1994 Toyota 4Runner on July 19 as she stood alongside her car in front of her Auburn home. Police reports said 28-year-old woman was carried by Cruz&#8217;s vehicle and then thrown to the ground. She suffered extensive injuries and died a month later at Harborview Medical Center.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>At the time of the accident, Cruz told police that he takes Suboxone, a prescription drug for opiate dependency. Cruz had no known criminal convictions, but did have a previous DUI charge out of Enumclaw.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p>Friends and family reflected and celebrated Ankerfelt&#8217;s life on Sept. 8. Kent&#8217;s Scenic Hill Elementary School, where Ankerfelt taught fifth grade, now has a program to reward students who exemplify Ankerfelt&#8217;s approach to life. Students are celebrated with an &#8220;A&#8221; award in the teacher&#8217;s memory.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Bonney Lake man who struck and killed Kent elementary school teacher Stacy Ankerfelt last summer could face more than 10 years in jail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-1659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1659"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}