Driver who killed 5 to get 25-year sentence

A drunk driver who killed four women the day before they were to attend a wedding in April 2006 will go to prison for 25 years.

Kenneth Delmar Stewart pleaded guilty to five counts of DUI manslaughter and two counts of DUI with serious bodily injury today.

Circuit Judge Robert Foster scheduled sentencing for July 17 to give the victims' family time to fly in from various places nationwide so they can witness it.

"I'm just glad it is over, I've been waiting three years," said Cathy Manzano Jones, the bride who lost her mother and three other relatives in the Apr. 21, 2006, crash.

"I would like more but what can you do? I am glad he got what he got."

Stewart entered into a plea bargain with prosecutors. In addition to the jail time, he also will be on 10 years probation when he's released from prison.

The daughter said the family approved the plea bargain. She said it was easier than having to relive the deaths in a trial.

"Every time I see him, I think that he is the last guy who saw my family," she said. "It kills me all the time."

Manzano Jones said she and her husband Cory went through with their wedding to honor her mother and the others who died.

"She wanted the big party," she said.

Manzano Jones said the family gathers every year for prayers, rosary and Mass for those they lost and then celebrate her wedding anniversary the next day.

The couple lives in Riverview.

Lab results show Stewart was driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.12, and state law presumes a driver is impaired at 0.08.

Stewart ran a red light in his Dodge Durango at about 3 a.m. while traveling east on Lumsden Drive. He smashed into a Mercedes that was driving south on Parsons Avenue. The women were returning from the airport where they had picked up relatives who had flown in for the wedding.

The crash killed Brandon resident Emily Manzano, 62, the mother. Her cousin Sonia Medders, 58, of Oceanside, Calif., died at the scene. Another cousin, Juliebeth Olega, 37, of Clifton Heights, Pa., died that morning at Brandon Regional Hospital.

Another relative, Victoria Weaver, 46, of Sparks, Nev., died a week later at Tampa General Hospital and another relative died after returning home to California.

Stewart's passengers, Tommy Walker, then 39, and Anthony Close, then 29, were also injured but released from the hospital soon after the crash.