On Monday, in Superior court, a sentence of 18 months was handed down against the young woman, 20-year-old Ashley Bashore, who struck and killed 28-year-old Hubert Tunuchuk with an SUV before driving off without rendering aid on Easter Sunday in 2011.

Superior Court Judge Jack Smith accepted the plea deal from Bashore, who police say, was texting at the time of the hit-and-run. Bashore pleaded guilty to Failing to help the victim after the Accident, Criminally Negligent Homicide and Tampering with Physical Evidence in the case against her.

It was in the spring of 2011, on April 24th, that Tunuchuk was walking on the overpass on Tudor Road above the Seward Highway in the early morning hours with his friends, when Bashore, heading eastbound, struck Tunuchuk with the right side of her vehicle. Tunuchuk was hit with such force that it knocked him out of his shoes and left him sprawled in the intersection to the off-ramp of the Seward Highway. Bashore drove up onto the curb before speeding away.

A taxicab driver called 911 and Tunuchuk was rushed to the hospital. He had suffered massive head trauma and internal injuries. Because of the large amount of blood lost, Tunuchuk would last only a scant three hours before succumbing to his injuries at the hospital.

Shortly after hitting Tunuchuk, Bashore would text a friend, saying, “OMG OMG OMG.” She then drove to a friend’s house where she said that she had hit “a mangy Rottweiler without a colllar.” It was found later and written in the bail memorandum documents, that Bashore admitted to her friend that she had struck Tunuchuk while she was texting. It was also noted that she had smelled of marijuana when she arrived at that home.

Bashore would delete the incriminating text messages from her phone after the incident. She would be arrested several months later in early December 2011. In court, Bashore would plead “not guilty” to the charges. Police would later piece together phone records to show that she was likely texting at the time of the accident. Her bail was set at $2,500 and a Third Party Custodian.

In July 2012, Bashore agreed to plead guilty in a plea agreement that would have sentenced her to three years imprisonment with two years suspended and probation for six years. In the agreement, she would have been banned from owning a cellphone with texting capabilities.

During court in October of 2012, Judge Smith did not allow the plea agreement however, saying, “I’m not convinced this is in the interest of justice.”

Prosecutor Christina Sherman told the Judge that she felt that the deal was appropriate. Bashore’s attorney, Rex Butler agreed, saying his client “obviously freaked out.”

Hubert Tunuchuk was from the western Alaska village of Chefornak. His village had sent him to AVTEC in Seward to study power-plant operations for the community. He had traveled to Anchorage on that April weekend to shop and to celebrate the holiday.

He was two weeks from graduation.

Tunuchuk’s family was disappointed with the sentence handed down.