ANCHORAGE — A teenager who struck and killed a bicyclist while driving drunk in Anchorage has started her four-month prison sentence.
Alexandra Ellis, 18, was taken into custody Monday after pleading guilty last year to negligent homicide for the 2014 hit-and-run crash that killed Jeff Holder-Dusenbury.
After the incident, Ellis spent 26 days in a crisis stabilization program and eight months at a residential treatment facility in Eagle River for substance abuse.
Ellis, who was 17 at the time of the crash, had initially been sentenced to one year in prison. But a judge granted a request from her attorneys that she be allowed to apply her time in substance abuse treatment toward her prison term. She was also allowed to finish her studies at the University of Alaska Anchorage before heading to jail.
Dusenbury’s friends and family had argued for a harsher sentence.
Dusenbury’s wife, Melissa Holder, previously told Anchorage station KTUU-TV (http://bit.ly/1OcB7ba) that she felt victimized by what she considered a very light sentence imposed on Ellis.
Holder and her daughter, who attended many of the previous hearings in the case, did not attend Monday’s brief proceedings where Ellis was handcuffed and taken to jail.
“They’re relieved that the sentence has begun, given all the twists and turns in the case. They didn’t have much confidence that this day would ever come,” said Peter Van Tuyn, a spokesman for the Dusenbury family.
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Information from: KTUU-TV, http://www.ktuu.com
