ROCK HILL --
For the rest of his life, Antwan Hemphill will remember his brother Lorenzo lying on Adnah Church Road while a set of taillights drives away.
Hemphill, 39, testified Thursday after the drunk driver who allegedly struck him and his brother while they were walking down the road - resulting in Lorenzo Hemphill's death - pleaded guilty to several charges.
Dianne Alice Webster, 46, of Rock Hill was sentenced to 25 years in prison by Judge William H. Seals on charges of felony DUI with a death, hit-and-run with injury and leaving the scene of an accident with death.
The most time Webster faced for all three charges was 51 years, but Seals said he handed down 25 years with the hope that Webster could redeem herself.
"I lost my brother," said Antwan Hemphill. "It's something that will play over and over in my head. ...I've seen war, but it doesn't touch like losing a family member."
Seeing Lorenzo Hemphill, 23, lying dead in the street was not something he could grasp, he said.
Prosecutors said Webster was driving on Adnah Church Road in York at about 9:30 p.m. Jan. 15 when her truck struck the Hemphills.
Lorenzo Hemphill died an hour later. Antwan Hemphill suffered minor injuries.
After hitting the two men, prosecutors said, Webster continued driving, hitting a building farther down the same road, before she was pulled over for speeding.
She failed field sobriety tests and tested positive for the prescription drug Xanax. Three hours later, her blood alcohol content was measured at 0.013 percent. In South Carolina, 0.08 percent blood alcohol is considered legally impaired.
During interviews with police, prosecutors said in court, Webster denied having hit anyone. Though a receipt and groceries inside her car indicated she had been to Food Lion a few hours earlier, prosecutors said, she could not remember having gone there.
Webster also did not know whose truck she was driving, prosecutors said, and told police she thought it was 2 a.m. Tuesday rather than Saturday night.
Lorenzo Hemphill's family and friends told the court about what a fun and caring person he was and how he had aspired to be a professional DJ.
"He enjoyed life to the fullest," said his sister Erica Peoples. "Everything he did was to make someone smile. Today, I can't see my brother smile."
Kevin Brackett, solicitor for the 16th Circuit, which includes York County, showed a three-dimensional rendering of what it looked like inside and outside the truck when Webster struck the Hemphills.
He pointed out that Webster was charged with DUI in 1992, 1995 and 1996 and with driving under a suspended license in 1995, 1996, 2001 and 2003.
Webster has had multiple opportunities to control her behavior, Brackett said, but she is a "menace to the road."
"A 23-year-old is gone forever because this woman could not control her behavior," Brackett said.
He asked that she be sent to prison until she can no longer drive.
Public defender Harry Dest, who acted as Webster's attorney, asked Seals to consider a sentence that would not destroy all hope of Webster's redeeming herself. He disagreed that Webster can't change her ways.
Dest called psychiatrist Harold Morgan, who testified that Webster has an insecure and dependent personality that has caused her to enter violent romantic relationships.
Webster also has a "severe disease - alcoholism and drug abuse," Morgan said.
Since the accident, Dest said, Webster has been a broken and fragile person who feels extremely sorry.
Angela McDowell, who said she had been Webster's friend for more than 30 years, talked about her friend as a caring person, a hard worker and good mother to her children, ages 17 and 25.
"This situation has been tragic for everyone involved," she said. "Everyone lost something that night."
Drinking and driving might be a choice, McDowell said, but a disease and addiction is not.
Webster read from a prepared statement, expressing regret and sorrow.
"This will be with me every day for the rest of my life," she said. "... I am sorry for all of the pain I have caused."
She said hoped Hemphill's family could forgive her one day.
