Prison sentence for fatal crash
Friday, January 29, 2010
Andy Ross
Bastrop Advertiser
When Patrick McAteer of Belfast, Northern Ireland took the witness stand Thursday morning in Bastrop County District Court he told jurors that his life "has been turned completely upside down" since being involved in a car crash nearly two and a half years ago on Texas 21.
No longer in possession of a spleen or a left arm, McAteer explained that he now copes with depression and has been forced to relearn simple tasks like opening a bottle or buttoning his shirt.
McAteer also told the court why his best friend from Belfast and fellow victim in the crash, Paul McGurk, did not return to Texas to testify this week in the trial of 59-year-old Susan Moore, the woman charged with causing the accident that fateful day in Sept. 2007 that killed McGurk's wife Eileen.
"He is very depressed. He won't answer the phone and just wants to sit in his apartment and be left alone," McAteer said in regards to McGurk's behavior since the wreck.
On Friday, a jury of nine women and three men found Moore guilty of one count of intoxication manslaughter and one count of intoxication assault in relation to the accident. During the subsequent punishment phase of the trial, the jury handed Moore a sentence of nine years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for causing the death of Eileen McGurk. Moore also received a 10 year probated sentence for the intoxicated assault charge. On Monday, 423rd District Judge Christopher Duggan will determine formal sentencing.
