Stambaugh Sentenced in Meijer Hit-and-Run of Laura Jacobs

Clockwise from upper left, Judge Paul Stutesman (pictured twice), Chief Assistant Prosecutor Joshua Robare, Attorney David Marvin, and Thomas Stambaugh appear at Stambaugh's sentencing in Circuit Court. (Zoom screenshot via YouTube)

Thomas Stambaugh, the perpetrator in the hit-and-run killing of Laura Jacobs in the Three Rivers Meijer parking lot last June, received his sentence Friday. During a hearing in St. Joseph County 45th Circuit Court, Stambaugh faced Judge Paul Stutesman and Chief Assistant Prosecutor Joshua Robare, represented by his attorney, David Marvin. Stutesman received a prison sentence after he pled guilty to the killing last month.

Marvin asked Stutesman to sentence Stambaugh at the lower end of the guidelines for the crime of operating with a suspended, denied, or revoked licence, causing death. Robare said Stambaugh was on probation at the time he struck Jacobs. Since the incident was his fourth habitual felony offense, the charge carries a potential sentence of life in prison, or a prison term of any number of years.

Courts use a numeric scoring system to establish guidelines for how many years a sentence should last in such cases. According to the points Stutesman assigned Stambaugh’s case, the guidelines called for a sentence lasting between slightly less than five years and nineteen years.

During Friday’s hearing, Stambaugh spoke partly on his own behalf. “First, I’d just like to take a second to truly apologize to everybody impacted by this and let them know that I’m sorry, and that this isn’t something that will I ever forget. Me, I live with demons in my head about this, that I carry on myself and a heavy burden,” Stambaugh said. “This was truly an accident.”

Early on the afternoon of June 18, 2020, in the Three Rivers Meijer parking lot, Stambaugh struck and killed Jacobs in his vehicle. Jacobs was 62 at the time and had been working at the Three Rivers Applebee’s restaurant. She had previously worked at Harding’s Super Market.

Witnesses at the time said a passenger in Stambaugh’s car told him he hit someone, but Stambaugh fled the scene. He was caught and arrested a few days later after being tracked down based on video surveillance footage of the vehicle he was driving. At the time of the October guilty plea, Marvin said Stambaugh was operating the vehicle despite never having been issued a driver’s license.

In preparing to issue a sentence, Stutesman said, “I remember hearing about it, and not being able to fathom how this can happen. First off, it was the shock that somebody had struck somebody at the Meijer parking lot in Three Rivers, and then left the scene and the person had died. Then, it became, ‘how can nobody turn themselves in after this happened? How can nobody accept responsibility and come forward? Even if they did panic and leave the scene, how could they not contact the police when they got home and say, I messed up?’”

Stutesman said, “the witnesses who immediately rushed to her help, they’ve all been traumatized by this. They saw what happened. They tried to help her. They tried to assist her to no avail.” Stutesman spoke more about what took place at the scene, and said, “I mean that if you read that, and it doesn’t send chills down your spine and make you wonder what our society has come to that somebody could do that.”

Referencing police and court documents, Stutesman said, “the witnesses reported that your passenger was screaming, ‘You just hit a lady! You just hit a lady!’ and you continue to tear out of the parking lot and on down to the road.” A short while later, Stutesman said, “you knew you weren’t supposed to be doing what you were doing.” He continued, “you say, ‘well, I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t high,’ which you may think is an excuse, you know, is a good thing. To me, it just says, ‘well then really, why did you not stop?’”

In Stambaugh’s previous convictions in Circuit Court, Stutesman said he “kept giving him breaks on the minimum (sentence), I kept giving him opportunities and programs.” Stutesman said he wondered if he should have handled those situations differently. “I sent you to prison. I didn’t send you apparently long enough to save this woman’s life. I’m not going to make that mistake again,” Stutesman said.

Just prior to issuing his sentence, Stutesman said, “your mother writes in a letter that you’re not a lost soul, that you have value to the community. Well, that’s all well and good, that’s true. But you’ve squandered that, and you can live with the knowledge that whatever life you could have had, in those minutes there, you made the decision to throw it all away by your actions that day.”

Stutesman sentenced Stambaugh to a term of between 19 and 40 years of incarceration with the Michigan Department of Corrections. Because he was on parole at the time of the incident, Stambaugh will receive no credit for time already served in jail since his arrest.

Dave Vago is a writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.