MANATEE COUNTY – Cierra Shannon, 28, of Holmes Beach, was sentenced on June 20 to four years in prison after pleading no contest on April 11 to a first-degree felony charge of leaving the scene of a crash with a death.
She also will serve a minimum of three years of probation, along with 120 hours of community service to be served in a trauma or similar facility, 10 years without a driver’s license, mental health treatment and a victim impact course.
Manatee County Circuit Court Judge Lon Arend handed down the sentence in a courtroom filled with Shannon’s friends and family and the friends and family of the victim, 83-year-old Madelyn Dakin, of Michigan.
Dakin’s husband of 67 years, Gerald, testified during the sentencing hearing that his wife was going to get laundry from their condo rental at Cedar Cove in Holmes Beach when she was struck by a vehicle on Feb. 10, 2021. He said that he tried to give his wife CPR before paramedics arrived at the scene of the accident.
A Holmes Beach Police Department report states that witnesses saw a woman matching Shannon’s description get out of her vehicle, run over to check on Dakin and then get back in the vehicle, fleeing the accident scene.
After Shannon’s vehicle was identified by Holmes Beach police officers using the city’s license plate reader camera system, officers attempted to locate her. After a warrant was issued for her arrest, her attorney contacted officers, giving them a general location of her vehicle on Feb. 11. Shannon turned herself into Bradenton police officers later the same day.
During the June 20 hearing, Dakin’s husband, one of her four sons and Shannon’s psychiatrist all testified, along with others.
Shannon’s attorney, Ronald Filipkowski, asked for Arend to take Shannon’s mental health into consideration when sentencing and reduce the sentence from a mandatory minimum of four years to supervised probation with community service.
Prosecutors asked for a penalty of 15 years in prison.
“There’s no winners here,” Filipkowski said. “This will affect her forever.”
Shannon spoke in her defense, saying that she’s sorry for what happened and that there was nothing she could have done to help Dakin after the accident.
“I am not okay,” she said. “I’m not okay with any of this. It never should’ve happened.”
Shannon went on to pledge to advocate for safer streets for motorists and pedestrians and asked Arend and Dakin’s family to consider the toll the accident has had on her mental health and what a prison sentence would do to her future.
“I didn’t see her,” Shannon said. “I didn’t have time to brake.”
She went on to say that she felt she went into some type of fugue state when she left the scene of the accident and was unconscious for several hours afterwards.
“It’s been a difficult afternoon for everyone here,” Arend said. “Had you stayed at the scene, I wouldn’t be involved.”
He said that with Shannon’s history of driving under the influence that he didn’t feel the accident resulting in Dakin’s death was an isolated incident but that he felt a penalty of 15 years was too steep.
Shannon remains in the custody of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Department.
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