Suicidal driver gets 8 years for crash that killed 3 musicians

Contributed by steveman. Posted by aubin on Monday, November 26, 2007 at 7:30 PM (EST)

The suicidal lingerie model responsible for the deaths of Silkworm drummer Michael Dahlquist, John Glick, guitarist of the Returnables and Doug Meis, drummer of Exo and the Dials has been sentenced to eight years.

According to her testimony, the killer, Jeanette Sliwinski, was attempting to commit suicide -- not murder -- when she drove at nearly 90 mph into the back of a car stopped at a red light in 2005. She also apologized to the families of those she killed, saying she did not mean to hurt anyone, although it is uncertain how she expected to hit an occupied car at nearly 90mph without injuring anyone aside from herself.

News (85 comments)

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Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not respon sible for them in any way. Seriously.

the_problem_with_fire (November 26, 2007)

8 years?

OctEgon (November 26, 2007)

She would have gotten the death sentence, but...y'know, she's kinda hot.

Autosuggestion (November 27, 2007)

Oh yeah? Even though the maximum penalty was 10 years?

freesandwich (November 26, 2007)

fuck this bitch

colin (November 26, 2007)

link doesn't work.

lynchme (November 26, 2007)

I like your ink wash work.. How do you go about doing that?

colin (November 26, 2007)

thanks!

japanese ink, brush, pencil, crowquill pen. watercolor paper or normal heavy sketch stock. generally i draw in pencil, then paint a layer, then do the ink with a pen and then do the final shading with paint again.

lynchme (November 26, 2007)

Ah, awesome stuff man. I was just about to experiment with cheap ink on a drawing I just completed. It's going to be on illustration board so I don't know how well that will turn out.

Your collage work looks really strong too.

xmadcowx (November 26, 2007)

I'm so tired of this story because every time I read about it it makes me fucking angry. As the article so clearly puts it...

"... although it is uncertain how she expected to hit an occupied car at nearly 90mph without injuring anyone aside from herself."

niveK82 (November 26, 2007)

Darwin failed with this girl

PersonalResponsibility (November 26, 2007)

That pisses me off so much. She should've gotten the fuckin death penalty. After all, that's what she wanted in the first place. Fuck this bitch, fuck the American justice system.

Good looking white bitches don't get more than 8 years I guess, don't matter what they do.

YasserBossin (November 26, 2007)

right on

billnye (November 26, 2007)

the death penalty?
are you serious?

tylerdurden8136 (November 26, 2007)

I was thinking the same thing.

If she wasn't white and attractive, she would have probably gotten life.

24HourPriapism (November 26, 2007)

i agree on all accounts, except for the fact that no.....she doesn't look good at all.

why couldn't she just run into a brick wall, or drive off a pier?

colin (November 26, 2007)

the death penalty? so you think the gov't should be allowed to kill people?

send her life without parole i say.

niveK82 (November 26, 2007)

why should tax payers have to pay for her to live out her life in prison?

allison_le_gnome (November 26, 2007)

You know, the death penalty is actually more expensive, due to the long amount of time people inevitably spend on death row...

spalmer (November 26, 2007)

And all the legal fees. People try the "cold logical economist" school on the death penalty, but it's just straight up barbaric with no purpose. It's not a deterrent at all.

jacknife737 (November 26, 2007)

Like the other user mentioned, it is FAR more expensive to incarcerate an inmate for life, then to sentence them to death.

spalmer (November 26, 2007)

No, you're wrong. Don't make assumptions, actually read about it. You're wrong.

jacknife737 (November 27, 2007)

"Don't make assumptions, actually read about it. You're wrong. "

Thank you for the best laugh i've had all day. And now to prove that your full of bullshit...

“the cost of keeping a 25-year-old inmate for 50 years at present amounts to $805,000. Assuming 75 years as an average life span, the $805,000 figure would be the cost of life in prison. So roughly it's costing us $2 million more to execute someone than it would cost to keep them in jail for life. This is just the dollar cost, the externalities will be discussed in a moment.” http://www.mindspring.com/~phporter/econ.html

“dollars. Studies conducted in Florida, North Carolina, and Texas estimate capital cases cost an average of $3.36 million, $2.16 million, and $2.3 million, respectively. The highest estimates are i

show rest of comment"Don't make assumptions, actually read about it. You're wrong. "

Thank you for the best laugh i've had all day. And now to prove that your full of bullshit...

“the cost of keeping a 25-year-old inmate for 50 years at present amounts to $805,000. Assuming 75 years as an average life span, the $805,000 figure would be the cost of life in prison. So roughly it's costing us $2 million more to execute someone than it would cost to keep them in jail for life. This is just the dollar cost, the externalities will be discussed in a moment.” http://www.mindspring.com/~phporter/econ.html

“dollars. Studies conducted in Florida, North Carolina, and Texas estimate capital cases cost an average of $3.36 million, $2.16 million, and $2.3 million, respectively. The highest estimates are in California where a single capital case is estimated to cost between $4.35 and $5.44 million” P. 12 http://www.econ.ilstu.edu/uauje/PDF%27s/issue1996/Death_Penalty.p df

“Estimated costs to the states on a yearly basis are astounding. A California study
estimated that the state spends an additional $90 million per year because of its
imposition of the death penalty” P. 12 http://www.econ.ilstu.edu/uauje/PDF%27s/issue1996/Death_Penalty.p df

“When all costs are considered, the death penalty costs a state several million dollars per
case. However, even when all of these costs are incurred in a trial and appeals process, an
execution cannot be assured.” P. 12 http://www.econ.ilstu.edu/uauje/PDF%27s/issue1996/Death_Penalty.p df

“Every major cost study has shown capital punishment to be more expensive than an alternative system where life-imprisonment is the maximum sentence.” - http://web.archive.org/web/20061225025928/www.fguide.org/Bulletin /cappun.htm

jacknife737 (November 27, 2007)

Hey look, MORE INFO!!!

“Death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment”
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=10 8

“of Kansas concluded that capital cases are 70% more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases. The study counted death penalty case costs through to execution and found that the median death penalty case costs $1.26 million. Non-death penalty cases were counted through to the end of incarceration and were found to have a median cost of $740,000.” http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=108
investigatio n costs for death-sentence cases were about 3 times greater than for non-death cases.

show rest of commentHey look, MORE INFO!!!

“Death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment”
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=10 8

“of Kansas concluded that capital cases are 70% more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases. The study counted death penalty case costs through to execution and found that the median death penalty case costs $1.26 million. Non-death penalty cases were counted through to the end of incarceration and were found to have a median cost of $740,000.” http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=108
investigatio n costs for death-sentence cases were about 3 times greater than for non-death cases. The trial costs for death cases were about 16 times greater than for non-death cases ($508,000 for death case; $32,000 for non-death case). The appeal costs for death cases were 21 times greater. The costs of carrying out (i.e. incarceration and/or execution) a death sentence were about half the costs of carrying out a non-death sentence in a comparable case. Trials involving a death sentence averaged 34 days, including jury selection; non-death trials averaged about 9 days. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=108
“States unwilling to pay the huge costs of defending people charged in capital cases may be unable to conduct executions.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/us/04penalty.html

“Florida, for example, spent between $25 million to $50 million more per year on capital cases than it would have to if all murderers received life without parole. The Indiana Legislative Services Agency estimated that had the state sentenced its death row populations to life without parole, Indiana taxpayers would have been spared approximately $37.1 million.” http://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/reports/sum mer06/capitalpunish

Gantry (November 27, 2007)

Ummm, you just proved yourself wrong twice. Perhaps you typed things backwards initially?

jacknife737 (November 27, 2007)

oh shit, yeah. My apologies to spalmer. Next time i'll have to STOP and take some time to think....

notfeelingcreative (November 28, 2007)

I just gained about 500 times more respect for you, it's not like a punknews reader to admit when they are wrong.

PersonalResponsibility (November 26, 2007)

Governments are instituted to secure our rights, among those rights are the right to LIFE. She took their life, she gave up hers. That's what it comes down to. I know governments are flawed and I therefore sometimes doubt whether they can do the job properly. But in a lot of cases where there is nothing that points to the accused's innocence, the death penalty is the right punishment. I see nothing morally wrong with it.

Autosuggestion (November 26, 2007)

Hahaha. That's rich.

MsJustinChris (November 26, 2007)

Barbaric. Perhaps Americans should just go back to the days of stoning people in the streets and public torture. They'd probably all gather around and get a kick out of it.

tylerdurden8136 (November 26, 2007)

My history is a little rough, but did we gather around and stone people to death back in the day?

Now, give me a good ol' public hanging anyday....

MsJustinChris (November 27, 2007)

I saw it in a movie called "The Lottery"

baseball (November 27, 2007)

that ridiculous viewpoint is a big part of why the US prison system is becoming more despicable every year

when exactly did people forget that the point of a justice system is supposed to be rehabilitation, not to fucking get a hard on from punishing them in the worst ways possible?

Dante3000 (rich) (November 26, 2007)

In all honesty I doubt she was thinking about the consequences of her actions when she decided to plow into the back of another car. She probably just figured driving 90mph and hitting something would kill her and she wouldn't worry about the rest. Selfish? Sure, but so are most suicides. Only difference is that most of them don't kill other people instead of you.
This woman needs psychiatric help more than the death penalty. I fail to see how killing another person would improve the situation or help the families find peace.
-Dante

SloaneDaley (November 26, 2007)

Intellectually I tend to agree with you I don`t think justice should be about punishment, it should be about the best way to help the affected portion of society heal and grow. Emotionally I can`t quite say, I`m not sure if it was my relative she killed if her mental state being better would really make me and my loved ones feel any more healed than her dying.

Dante3000 (rich) (November 26, 2007)

I know what you mean, her being mental stable doesn't bring back your loved ones. It's like, "Great, she killed my relative and got mental treatment on the governments dime...That's fucked".
But, she's more useful alive than dead, from a purely utilitarian viewpoint. As a healthy human she can contribute to society, maybe even take her second chance to speak to people about depression and the ills of suicide. God willing, it might prevent this from happening to at least one other individual.
Of course being in prison for 8 years would totally make me want to kill myself, so...
-Dante

LookBackAndLaugh (November 26, 2007)

The problem with utilitarian logic is that it is practically impossible to know the long-term effects of anything. That makes it pretty tough to act morally. Like, if she lived and gave speeches, does that make her act of killing three people moral?
Another is what one defines as happiness: is what happened in Brave New World happiness?

As for the incident. I don't think that the death penalty should apply. Not only because I don't believe in the death penalty, but also because legally, this is just not a bad enough crime to justify it. It was unintentional for one thing.

victim (December 4, 2007)

No, no according to right wing economics the Law Of Unintended Consequence insures that any time you try to help someone out it will backfire and do more damage than good.

Its their (real) religion

heyyon (November 26, 2007)

As is almost universally true on these threads, Dante is the lone voice of reason... and his reply is the lone reply worth your time as a reader.

Dante3000 (rich) (November 26, 2007)

I would blush if I wasn't so full of retarded and evil.
-Dante

eazyd (November 26, 2007)

wow you are almost as much of a tool as he is.

lintsay (November 26, 2007)

well said. and obviously she wouldnt feel the need to think about the consequences of her actions if her plan ended in her no longer being alive. why would she need to?

randomhero323 (November 26, 2007)

if she was a guy she would have gotten a lot more than that

martinNZ09 (November 26, 2007)

Link Busted

Nene (November 26, 2007)

dumb fuckin bitch

EZ3 (November 26, 2007)

These crashes wouldn't happen if suicide was legalized.

T-Rock (November 26, 2007)

Post of the day, right there. Haha.

FatTony (November 26, 2007)

I don't know if your post was sarcastic or not, but I really do agree with you. If a person wants to end their own life, they should have the right to do so without endangering others. I never really understood how a government could forcefully take a person's life while outlawing a person's right to make that decision for themselves.

ghpunkguy (November 26, 2007)

Working link

Click here

OctEgon (November 26, 2007)

Does Chicago Sun Times have an editor? They printed two paragraphs twice!

Steveman (November 26, 2007)

No. The Sun Times is a terrible newspaper.

blue_drink (November 26, 2007)

Every month gets scarier and scarier for me to go for my licence...

allison_le_gnome (November 26, 2007)

Driving school test > DMV test

dontwantaname (November 26, 2007)

The traffic safety test in HS was much, much harder than the DMV test. It was 100 questions and I scored an 80 which was the lowest you could score, so I passed! DMV is super easy. It's like 20 multiple choice and answers are so obvious, like "what's the speed on a country road 30,40,50,60?" Answer is "50" where I'm from. The DMV driving test is wasy too. All you have to do is back up around some corners, parallel park between some cones, park going up/down a hill and you turn you wheels a certain way. Just go do it. Too long?

Citizen_Crack (November 26, 2007)

stupid cunt. Doesn't even know how to commit suicide right, no wonder she wanted to kill herself.

rob_rob (November 26, 2007)

its so hard being a model. Cut this bitches head off on a grainy video casette.

deathmetalFUCKINsucks (November 26, 2007)

i hope she gets ass raped every day in jail.

freesandwich (November 26, 2007)

broom handle!

Archangel (November 26, 2007)

I think I already had the whole "This woman's action is indefensible" debate when this story was first posted, so I'll just say that she deserved life.

Fuck her.

louisthunter (November 26, 2007)

Crazy people don't think rationally.

rugget (November 26, 2007)

Please stop yourself from crashing into me at 90mph.

DontTaserMeBro (November 26, 2007)

i tend to agree with the argument that if she wanted to kill herself, the last thing on her mind was harming others. to commit suicide you either need to have serious, deep seeded mental problems or you need to be a completely self-centered asshole. these are two things that are needed to be capable of committing murder, too..

regardless, she should've gotten life. there's no way to know that she was truly suicidal and this wasn't just a case of premeditated road rage. had there been any evidence pointing to that in a different situation, whoever it was would've gotten life. they took it easy on her because she's a model.

Archangel (November 26, 2007)

You completely fucked up your user name.

Autosuggestion (November 26, 2007)

I'm not sure there can be such a thing as premeditated road rage.

Your understanding of the law is specious at best.

RRK (November 27, 2007)

Your grasp of English is suspicious(?) at best.

Autosuggestion (November 27, 2007)

Hey Smart Guy,

Why don't you do yourself a favor and use a motherfucking dictionary?

baseball (November 27, 2007)

lmao

DontTaserMeBro (November 27, 2007)

well, road rage that ends this way, not that there's such a thing as sentenced "premeditated road rage" (as i foolishly called it under the assumption that everyone here had half a brain to deduce what i meant), is a crime that yields serious charges when it ends in fatality. these charges (the subsequent sentence for vehicular manslaughter, and (or) reckless endangerment, and (or) reckless driving, and (or) gross negligence) result in a felony offense, which, when combined, would yield a far more serious prison term than the eight years to the sentenced model. had it been called a premeditated murder (which plenty of available evidence could have pointed to), it would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to life.

so, that explains my claim that it could be seen as taking it easy on a model.

as far as my knowledge of the law is concerned,

show rest of comment

JustinUCR (November 26, 2007)

8 years for three lifetimes of actually really good music.

Rawls_with_Balls (November 26, 2007)

I'm not gonna read any of the posts for this story, but I'm sure they are all measured and insightful.

GnatDecay (November 26, 2007)

I know its not murder but 8 years in jail shouldn't be all of it. She should at least go to a crazy home for a few years or something.

allison_le_gnome (November 26, 2007)

"Suicidal lingerie model?" I can't believe no one's made a Suicide Girls joke yet.

llepke (November 27, 2007)

MODEL??? lol, yeah she "modeled", at Heavenly Bodies and the Admiral Theater

eighty (November 26, 2007)

what the flying fuck is wrong with people

jesus lets kill three innocent people while i can't even kill myself

stupid stupid

zetsurinpower (November 26, 2007)

how is she alive? was she wearing her seatbelt?

roxyepoxy (November 27, 2007)

Fuck you, asshole. You got off easy.

RRK (November 27, 2007)

I don't appreciate the editorializing in this article. In fact, I find it rather disgusting. I'm disappointed that Aubin or whomever proofed it didn't edit out the last sentence.

jacknife737 (November 27, 2007)

I agree 100%. It's actually pretty pathetic.

spray (November 27, 2007)

women are evil, stupid evil cunts. how dumb can you fucking be. hope she gets fat and dies.

retisonic (November 27, 2007)

this story makes me so fucking mad i don't even know what to say about that piece of shit. so she cant hang herself? she has to murder innocent people? i honestly hope she rots in hell.

Laurier (November 27, 2007)

It takes a truly stupid person to commit suicide fail but kill other people at the same time....

MyStereoHasMono (November 27, 2007)

I'm in Chicago and the news has been saying that with her credit for time served and good behavior, she could be out in 19 months. That's so fucked up.

DustyFloors (November 27, 2007)

Cunt

rockthiscasbah (November 27, 2007)

Has anyone else read the book Rant? Sounds like Echo Lawrence to me...

nicolaaaa (November 27, 2007)

BITCH BITCH I HOPE SHE GETS RAPED IN PRISON THAT BITCH

i'm not pro this lady by any means, but seriously, fuck some of the comments in this thread

Ninid7 (November 28, 2007)

I've been devastated over this for 2+ years. Doug Meis was a good, dear friend of mine. I met him when I was young and working for his band, EXO, and he was one of the most amazing people I ever met. I do not know the other two men personally, but I can only imagine how much they were loved if they were friends with Doug.

I cannot believe that stupid bitch only got 8 years. And considering that the law only requires her to serve 1/2 that time and she'd being credited for the 2 years and 4 months she's already spent in jail, she could be released in 19 months. That is one of the scariest and most angering things I have ever heard. I really wish something could be done about it.

I don't want her to get the death penalty, but I wanted her to serve the rest of her life in prison, which was originally what was supposed to happen. Before her c

show rest of comment