Chanton Jenkins, who last year drove his vehicle filled with himself, his adult brother, and six children, into a Harris County bayou has received 30 years in prison for the accident that resulted in the death of five of the six children.
According to Jenkins, his car, a Lincoln, hit a pothole and he lost control, causing the vehicle to go into the water, possibly backward. Two and a half hours after the accident, Jenkins’s blood was drawn and found to be just under the legal limit of .08 percent alcohol content. He admitted to drinking some alcohol that morning and also the previous night. The weather conditions during the crash were pouring rain and the bayou was swelled with water.
Two of the mothers whose children had been killed in the incident were asking for leniency, whereas, a third mother does not believe Jenkins understands the gravity of his actions. He is claiming he was not intoxicated at the time of the wreck, although evidence shows a different story.
Another sad twist to the story is that Jenkins escaped from the sinking car by crawling over the children in the back of the vehicle to get out the back window that had broken in the crash. His adult brother, and one of the children also escaped through the back window.
