ST. CLAIRSVILLE — A driver traveling the wrong direction on Ohio 7 cost Raymond Cole, 41, of Martins Ferry his life in late February.

On Tuesday the case was resolved with a plea agreement and sentencing.

Samantha Seitz, 30, of Benwood pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and aggravated vehicular assault, felonies of the second and third degrees. She was accused of causing the head-on collision that killed Raymond Cole and injured his mother, Charlene Cole, who was driving the car in which he was a passenger.

Belmont County Common Pleas Judge John Vavra imposed the agreed-upon sentence of 10-12 years behind bars.

Belmont County Prosecutor Kevin Flanagan said Seitz will serve at least 10 years in prison. He said Vavra imposed the maximum sentence of eight years for the second-degree felony and an additional two years for the third-degree felony.

“The reason the sentence was as high as it was was because of her level of intoxication,” Flanagan said. “If you drive reckless, that’s one offense, but it’s a higher offense if you’re under the influence of alcohol, which she was.”

Flanagan said the Cole family was informed of the proceedings.

“As with all cases, we discussed the resolution with the family, and the fact that Mrs. Seitz was going to receive a maximum sentence for the death of their loved one as well as additional time for the injuries suffered by the mother,” Flanagan said. “Mrs. Cole, the mother, spoke on the record and discussed how this impacted her family.”

A grand jury is scheduled to meet this week, with arraignments next week.

“We were preparing for grand jury when we were notified that the defendant wanted to change her plea to that of ‘guilty,'” he said. “The case that was put together by the Ohio State Highway Patrol was very solid. It included atrocious driving, which had devastating effects on the occupants of the other vehicle. That other vehicle was hit head-on by the drunk driver. It gets no worse than this situation. You had totally innocent people driving southbound on Ohio 7 when they are confronted by a drunk driver in the wrong lane of travel. They are then hit head-on, causing the death of the passenger and serious harm to the driver. All the while, the drunk driver suffers minimal injury.

“As I indicated, it gets no worse than this.”

Assistant Public Defender Aaron Miller said Seitz was remorseful.

“This was a young girl who was a good girl, who made a horrible decision and it ended in a terrible tragedy. From the very beginning of this case, she wanted to resolve it, but I have a legal responsibility to defend her rights. So, rather than having her send letters to the judge like she wanted to, I told her not to talk to anyone. Today she had the opportunity to seek forgiveness and basically said she would spend the rest of her life seeking the forgiveness of the family and the forgiveness of God, and that was through a river of tears,” Miller said.

“She wanted to accept responsibility from Day 1, but I had legal work to do on her case, so she accepted responsibility for her actions at the very first opportunity, without having to be indicted,” he said. “It was just a tragedy for everyone involved.”

Mike Grant of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the investigating officer, attended the hearing. He said he provided body camera footage and toxicology reports for the investigation.

“It is an awful event,” Grant said. “We’ll never know how many incidents like that that we prevent. We’ll just unfortunately remember those that do happen, and it helps us focus and work harder on preventing anything else like that from happening again.”