Driver gets four years in pedestrian's death

Five years would have been the maximum sentence.
YOUNGSTOWN -- A Washingtonville man is going to prison for four years after he pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide in the July 6, 2004, death of an 18-year-old pedestrian on Washingtonville Road near Roller Road in Green Township.
David Lee Fry, 41, of West Main Street, drew the sentence recently from Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Fry had pleaded guilty in February in the death of Stephen Houchins of Third Street, Salem. Houchins was killed instantly when he was struck by the pickup truck Fry was driving.
Both men were southbound, having left the same house party on Green Valley Road. Fry left the scene of the 12:10 a.m. accident, said Michael McBride, assistant county prosecutor.
"What kind of person hits somebody and drags him on the hood of the truck over 300 feet and into the ditch and rolls him off and doesn't stop to see if Stevie's OK?" Houchins' mother, Julie Houchins of Salem, asked in court.
"I want you to keep his memory alive. ... Give David the maximum sentence he deserves," she told the judge. The maximum allowable sentence would have been five years.
Fry apologized to the Houchins family, and the judge found Fry had genuine remorse and accepted responsibility for his actions. After Fry's lawyer, Heidi Hanni, said Fry had a history of mental illness, the judge ordered that state officials assign him to a prison that offers mental-health treatment.
"There's nothing that I can do or say to turn back the hands of time. ...The true judgment in this case will come another day," the judge said.