Woman sentenced for texting-while-driving fatality

A southern Kansas woman has been placed on a year of supervised probation for a texting-while-driving crash that left another driver dead.

The Pratt Tribune reports that 36-year-old Jennifer Dale, of Preston, must also pay a $1,000 fine under the sentence she received Wednesday.

Dale pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of vehicular homicide in the December 2012 crash that killed 78-year-old Virginia Sell, of Stafford. Authorities said Sell had slowed on Kansas 61 to make a left turn when her car was rear-ended by Dale’s vehicle.

The impact sent Sell’s car into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer. Sell was thrown from her car and died at the scene.

Dale’s probation requires her to speak at six schools about the consequences of texting while driving.