York driver gets 2 years in Christmas hit-and-run death

The driver charged with a deadly hit and run in York on Christmas night was sentenced to two years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to hit and run resulting in death.

Court testimony showed that Anthony Shannon, 47, was walking in the road and had a blood-alcohol level almost five times the legal limit when he was struck and killed.

“I didn’t see him,” said Dana Eugene Lanier, 42, of York – who has previous convictions for escape, drug possession and obstruction of justice.

Lanier and Shannon knew each other from work and lived in the same neighborhood.

“I was tore up” over killing Shannon, Lanier said in court. “I’m just sorry. It was an accident. ... I wasn’t drunk.”

Yet Lanier fled the scene and avoided police for almost two weeks.

“If he had just stopped,” 16th Circuit assistant solicitor Willy Thompson said in court, “he wouldn’t be going to jail.”

Thompson said there was no evidence Lanier was intoxicated at the time of the accident.

Shannon was killed at about 10 p.m. Dec. 25 as he was walking home from a Christmas party on Railroad Avenue in York. Prosecutors said in court Wednesday that Shannon had a blood alcohol level of 0.387 – almost five times the legal limit of 0.08. Evidence shows Shannon was walking with traffic, not facing traffic, in the road on a drizzling and foggy night, Thompson said.

It was “impossible to see the victim,” Thompson said, and Lanier “was not at fault” for the collision.

But Shannon died because he was hit by the truck Lanier was driving. And the reason for the charges and prison time in the negotiated plea deal were that Lanier did not stop to render aid or call police.

Lanier’s lawyer, 16th Circuit Chief Public Defender Harry Dest, said there is no evidence Lanier was impaired, calling the crash a “tragic accident.” He said Lanier admits he failed to stop to render aid or call police.

In a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Shannon’s family, the family alleges Lanier and the two passengers in the car, Ben Jason Davidson and Joshua David Turner, were impaired.

Peggy Shannon alleged in court Wednesday that Lanier hit her son twice with the truck – once when Shannon was knocked from the road, and then a second time when Lanier went back to rifle through Shannon’s pockets seeking $20 that her son had been sent out with to buy crack cocaine.

Peggy Shannon was upset with the negotiated two-year sentence. She said her son was a drug user, not a drug dealer.

“Somebody can sell drugs and get more than a person who kills,” Peggy Shannon told Circuit Judge Paul Burch.

Then, to Lanier, she said: “I forgive you, but I won’t forget.”

Thompson told Burch there was no evidence collected by police to support any claim that Shannon was hit more than once by Lanier.

The death went unsolved for two weeks, and Thompson said the defendants returned to the scene and even checked media reports about the case, before Turner’s father learned about the crash and demanded his son tell police. Lanier then told police he knew he had “hit something” that night.

Criminal charges against Davidson and Turner for accessory after the fact remain pending.

This story was originally published May 18, 2016 at 8:51 AM with the headline "York driver gets 2 years in Christmas hit-and-run death."