Woman gets 5 to 15 years in girl’s death

By Matt Pordum

Thursday, Aug. 18, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.

A 30-year-old woman was sentenced Wednesday to 5 to 15 years in prison for driving under the influence of drugs, causing a collision that killed an 8-year-old girl on a bicycle.

Kimberly Bunch had previously pleaded not guilty to that charge and one count each of reckless driving and involuntary manslaughter for the May 5, 2004, traffic collision in North Las Vegas that left Justyne Steffee in a coma from which she never recovered. Prosecutors dropped those two additional charges in exchange for Bunch's plea of guilty to the DUI charge.

Before District Judge Joseph Bonaventure sentenced Bunch, he held a picture of Justyne that showed on one side what the little girl looked like before the crash and on the other side what Justyne looked like lying in a hospital bed.

"Your despicable lack of concern for those around you caught up with you and took the life of this beautiful little girl and made her into this, and now she's dead," Bonaventure said. "Every day you're in prison will be another day they (Justyne's family) miss their little girl."

Police said Bunch was driving her Chevrolet Lumina northbound on Revere Street at 57 to 62 mph when she hit Justyne, who was traveling with the flow of westbound traffic while crossing the street on her bicycle at Craig Creek, police said. The speed limit there is 35 mph.

Deputy District Attorney Bruce Nelson said the case against Bunch was about choices: Bunch "chose to use methamphetamine, chose to use marijuana and chose to drive."

Blood test results taken by North Las Vegas police indicated Bunch was under the influence of methamphetamines and marijuana at the time of the collision.

Justyne's mother, Nichole Steffee, had wanted Bunch's minimum sentence to be eight years -- "a year in jail for every year Justyne was alive."

She blamed Bunch for making the road to closure ever the more difficult by maintaining her innocence for months before finally pleading guilty.

Bunch, who has 11-year-old and 8-year-old daughters, said she has trouble even looking at them because every time she does, she thinks of Justyne.

Bunch cried loudly in court and told Justyne's relatives, "Sorry is just not adequate. I will never forget about her till the day I die."

But Justyne's grandmother, Shirley Steffee Whitney, said later that Bunch "has shown an unbelievable lack of remorse."

"Not once did she (Bunch) personally express she was sorry," Steffee Whitney said. "Not even when we held a constant vigil in the hospital in the two weeks after it happened. In the halls of the courthouse I never once saw you look at me and mouth, 'I'm sorry.' "

Tears ran down the grandmother's face as she said that she cannot go shopping at grocery stores for fear of seeing the candy aisle and envisioning little Justyne picking out her favorite candy bar.

"If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, I would go right up to heaven and bring Justyne home again," Steffee Whitney said.

Justyne's stepfather, Jeffrey Jack, said for him it "takes time to remember her (Justyne) as the happy, vivacious child" because "now I wake up at night only to see visions of her lying in that hospital bed."

Jack said the toughest times are during the holidays and when shopping and coming across the toy section. At those moments he can only think of Justyne's "body lying broken, the swelling making her eyes seem to bulge out of her head."

Justyne's mother, Nichole Steffee, said she has suffered from depression and anxiety, which doctors have said exacerbated her diabetes and hyperglycemia.

Although she has two sons, she cannot bear to see other people with their daughters because "you miss the dresses and the pretty things."