A man whose wrong-way driving killed a family on Independence Day will spend up to 30 years in prison for the crime.
In 3rd District Court on Tuesday, Paul Michael Mumford, 36, of Murray, was sentenced to two to 30 years in the Utah State Prison for the July 4 crash on Interstate 80 that killed a woman and her two children, and left the children’s father critically injured.
Mumford had been driving westbound on I-80 when he made a U-turn and began going eastbound on the road, still in the westbound lane of the highway. He crashed head-on into a Chevrolet Suburban carrying a Farmington couple and their two daughters.
Delphine John, 44, and the girls, 18-year-old Deliah Ramirez and 3-year-old Aniyah Adame, were killed by the force of the crash. The driver, 36-year-old Jose Adame-Orozco, was critically injured but has since recovered.
Blood tests showed Mumford had been driving with a blood alcohol level of .24 — three times the legal limit.
The crash was so severe that investigators had difficulty identifying the victims. A nephew called the Utah Highway Patrol after seeing a news report about the crash.
Mumford pleaded guilty on Sept. 2 to two charges of manslaughter and one count of automobile homicide with criminal negligence from DUI or drugs, both second-degree felonies. Tooele County Chief Deputy Attorney Gary Searle said although they had considered filing other charges in different degrees, both the prosecution and defense felt those charges were appropriate for the crime.
“We looked at the facts, we looked at his blood-alcohol content, we looked at the time we thought he should serve in prison. We could accomplish our goals without going to trial. So that’s why he pleaded to the three,” Searle said. “We felt that was in the range of the sentence we were looking for.”
However, he said, this case is a tragedy from start to finish.
“I always cringe when people talk about winners and losers in the criminal justice system because I don’t know how anyone claims to be a winner with so many people hurt,” Searle said. “This husband, father, lost his wife, his stepdaughter and his daughter. The Ramirezes lost their daughter. Mr. Mumford’s children have lost their father, and his children have done nothing wrong, so I add them to the list of victims.”
Searle added that Mumford will likely be in his 60s by the time he is released from prison.
“It’s just a tragic case from any perspective,” he said.
