Margarito Quintero-Rosales was in the country illegally and had no driver’s license when he fell asleep behind the wheel of a van and crossed over the center line of a Texas highway, colliding with another car. Captain Peter Hacking, a Collin County volunteer fireman, was driving the automobile Quintero-Rosales collided with. Ellie, the firefighter’s four-year-old daughter, and Grayson, his 22-month-old son, were also there. All three were killed.
Courtney Hacking, Peter Hacking’s widow, lost her two children and her husband on that fateful day, leaving the bereaved mom to raise her four surviving children alone. And she feels it was entirely avoidable, particularly given Quintero-Rosales’ earlier deportation in 2008. This, in her view, could have been avoided, Courtney added. That guy stole half of her heart that day, which she will never be able to reclaim.
Our legal system exaggerated Courtney’s suffering. Quintero-Rosales was apprehended at the scene and imprisoned until his conviction. A Collin County grand jury indicted him on three charges of manslaughter, with each count punishable by two to 20 years in state prison in Texas. Nevertheless, according to court documents, Quintero-Rosales reached an agreement with prosecutors from Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis’ office.
Quintero-Rosales was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to a lesser felony of criminally negligent murder, with credit for time served for the 537 days he spent in jail prior to his conviction. This implies he’d be out of prison in fewer than 200 days—or around 6 and 1/2 months, according to simple math. This did not sit well with the mother, who would spend the rest of her life grieving the deaths of her spouse and their two kids.
He wasn’t meant to be here, Courtney stated in court, according to a written statement read out to Quintero-Rosales. She said that all of this sorrow was his fault. He was here illegally for the second time. He was driving a vehicle without a license on his way home from a job he was unlawfully paid to undertake. Three lovely people died as a result of his greed.
Courtney Hacking was not comforted by the sentencing. There isn’t a day that goes by that she doesn’t hope she is waking up from a terribly awful dream, she added. How can he look at someone and say, ‘You murdered three people in two years,'” she wondered? She feels like she is simply walking around and existing. She is neither glad nor sad; she is simply here, she said as she fought back tears. She is missing their kisses, she said. Everything about them makes her miss them every day.
a small girl who was an excellent big sister. Courtney described Margarito Quintero-Rosales as a small guy who never had a chance to grow up. “A guy who gave more than anybody she has ever seen give before,” she remarked, referring to her own legal immigrant spouse.
This added insult to Courtney’s injuries. Finding out it was an illegal immigrant, her husband himself was an immigrant; he came from England, he came here lawfully, he did it the proper way, she stated.
The penalty, which she describes as a “slap on the wrist,” has prompted her to take things into her own hands. They believe his crime and punishment fit since he was an illegal immigrant, Courtney said. However, to her, being illegal in the country was a crime in and of itself, so she is not sure how he got just two years.
Courtney Hacking has been working with federal senators to enact stronger penalties for illegal immigrants who breach the law since she views illegal immigration as an exacerbating element in the crimes committed.
The message has to get through to them that when one comes to this country, one has to do it legally, Courtney said, because when they get here, all they get is a slap on the wrist, and they’re going back to Mexico or whatever nation they came from.
This case failed horribly to send a lesson to anyone who continually defies the law and kills innocent people. If anybody deliberately engages in a crime that results in the death of another person, even if they weren’t planning for it to occur or it did not happen by their own hand, the penalty should be severe. They willfully broke the law and should be held liable for all of the repercussions of their criminal acts.
