PORT ANGELES — Mary Kristine Kniskern is expected to respond to a plea agreement in the deaths of three people in what investigators have deemed a drunken driving crash on New Year’s Eve 2002.
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly extended a formal plea offer to Kniskern on Thursday that would carry a prison sentence of 12 years, the top of the standard sentencing range for the five charges Kniskern faces.
During a brief hearing Thursday afternoon in Clallam County Superior Court, Kniskern’s attorney, Terry Mulligan of Clallam-Jefferson Public Defenders, said Kniskern will respond to the plea offer in court next week.
Another hearing in the case is scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday before Superior Court Judge Pro-Tempore William Knebes.
Kniskern, of Diamond Point, is currently being held on $1 million bail for the Dec. 31, 2002, car crash that killed Aaron Gambell, 19, Paul Boynton, 22, and Heather Holden, 19, and injured Stuart Bury and Courtney West.
She is charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and two counts of vehicular assault.
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The rest of the story appears in the Friday/Saturday Peninsula Daily News Clallam County edition.
