Andrew Voigt, a 56-year-old from Penn Hills, has been found guilty in the high-speed incident leading to the death of 15-year-old Serra Catholic student Samantha Kalkbrenner, as Judge Bruce Beemer of Allegheny County Common Pleas court delivered a guilty verdict on charges of reckless driving, while foregoing the notion of racing. According to TribLive, during a non-jury trial, he was convicted of five misdemeanor counts of recklessly endangering another person and additional charges related to careless driving and speeding. Voigt had vehemently denied racing the other driver, William Soliday, who had previously accepted a plea deal and is serving 5½-12 years in prison.
Despite the prosecution's efforts to substantiate claims of racing, the defense successfully debunked them, opening a lane for Voigt's partial reprieve from those specific accusations, even though his speed was estimated at a perilous 107 mph just moments before the crash. Voigt admitted to driving above the speed limit that ill-fated morning, actions deemed "ridiculously dangerous" by Judge Beemer as Voigt's speed placed "everyone in that van in danger of death or serious bodily injury," Judge Beemer concluded, highlighted in the TribLive report.
According to TribLive, the tragedy unraveled last September, when Voigt and Soliday were both on their way to work at Bettis Atomic Laboratory; as they crossed the Mansfield Bridge, Soliday's vehicle collided with the van carrying Samantha and three other students to school, a collision that was captured on video by a nearby Tesla, showing Voigt's car bypassing the wreckage without stopping. In the aftermath, Voigt removed a distinctive vehicle sticker and did not report the incident, he later recounted to investigators, "I panicked," he told them, "I was a mess," his account further explained during the proceedings, Voigt claimed he thought about calling 911 but froze, acknowledging that his actions on the fateful day were a far cry from his military training to assist others in need.
In the courtroom, the parents of Samantha Kalkbrenner clung to each other, grieving not just the loss of their daughter but the absence of remorse from those involved, this observation was echoed by Samantha's mother, Nenita Kalkbrenner, who in a statement detailed by CBS News Pittsburgh, asked "How are you going to forgive someone if there is no remorse from any one of them?" Meanwhile, Voigt displayed little emotion throughout the verdict, with sentencing scheduled for August 19th.
