Woman sentenced to 8 years for crash that killed 3 rock musicians

A judge sentenced a former model to 8 years in prison Monday for causing a high-speed crash that killed three Chicago rock musicians during an alleged suicide attempt.

A tearful Jeannette Sliwinski, 25, apologized to victims' relatives at the sentencing hearing.

"There's not a day that goes by I do not think about the grief and the pain I have caused," the Morton Grove woman said, looking toward the relatives in the courtroom. "I'm sorry."

The same judge, Cook County Circuit Judge Garritt Howard, found Sliwinski guilty but mentally ill last month of reckless homicide and aggravated battery in the July 2005 deaths of Michael Dahlquist, 39, John Glick, 35, and 29-year-old Douglas Meis.

With more than two years credit for time she has already served in jail, Sliwinski could be released after only a few years if she receives good-time credit. Mental-health services will be available to her in prison, said prosecutors, who had pushed for a longer prisoner term.

Sliwinski allegedly told investigators she had been in a fight with her mother and wanted to take her own life. She was driving at least 70 mph and ran three red lights when her car rammed the musicians' car in this northern Chicago suburb, police have said. Sliwinski broke an ankle.

Dahlquist, who moved to Chicago from Washington state, was the drummer for a band called Silkworm. Glick, a Boston native, was a guitarist and singer with the Returnables, while Meis played drums with Glick's wife, Rebecca Crawford, in a band called The Dials.