Published: June 05, 2009 09:55 am      

Emotions high in sentencing

Case over Stratford man’s death ends

An emotionally-charged case has come to an emotion-filled end with the recent sentencing for a defendant facing both manslaughter and murder charges since the traffic death of a Stratford man more than three years ago.

Prison time awaits Mark Hampton, 38, of Denton, Texas after his guilty plea for a first-degree manslaughter charge related to the death of Weldon Ward, 59.

The Stratford man was killed on March 6, 2006 when the vehicle he was driving was struck by Hampton’s pickup north of Stratford.

The case, which was moved to Cleveland County District Court in Norman, started with a manslaughter charge against Hampton. That was amended to a second-degree murder count before reverting to the original charge filed against him.

It was Hampton’s new plea to the manslaughter charge that drew him a sentence of 12 years in prison to be followed by that same time period on probation afterwards.

The sentence was given to Hampton during a hearing overseen by District Judge Tom Lucas of Norman.

“It was a long and emotionally-charged sentencing,” said Garvin County Assistant District Attorney George Burnett, who stressed Hampton will serve at least 10 of the years behind bars.

The hearing stretching more than two hours long included victim impact statements and testimony on both sides.

Burnett said much of the prosecution’s case rested on the words of Ward’s family, which included a statement from his four sisters read to the court by his brother-in-law Kelly McMillan.

“He gave a long discussion about how hard this was on their family,” Burnett said.

Then came the real emotion as Ward’s wife, Lisa, took the stand to give her side of just how difficult it’s been to deal with her husband’s death.

“There wasn’t a dry eye in the courtroom when she testified,” Burnett said.

“Even the defendant was sobbing. The court reporter was dabbing her eyes. I got a little emotional listening to her comments.”

Testimony on Hampton’s behalf came from a childhood friend, his employer and his mother.

Burnett said he asked for Hampton to be sentenced to a 30-year prison term because he was intoxicated when the fatal crash occurred, in addition to the defendant’s previous history with alcohol related offenses.

Another reason for the request was the speed of Hampton’s vehicle when Ward was killed, which he said was believed to be 97 mph.

Still, the local assistant D.A. was very much satisfied with the sentence.

“I’m glad we got this case over for this family and the community of Stratford,” Burnett said.

His hope is the sentence in this case and others like it send a message to the public about how the D.A.’s office prosecutes drunk driving cases.

“People only take drinking and driving seriously when someone dies. We’re trying to send a message that we’re going to be aggressive in prosecuting these cases,” he said.

In this case state authorities reported Ward was driving a pickup that pulled a flatbed trailer when he slowed the vehicle down to turn into a private drive just off U.S. Highway 177.

Troopers reported an intoxicated Hampton was driving a vehicle that came up from behind the trailer too fast and went airborne taking off the entire cab of the pickup killing Ward.