Warning: some information in this article may be upsetting to some readers.
A Laurens County criminal court jury took 45 minutes on Wednesday to convict Gabriel Arteaga of causing the death of 3-year-old Madison Hines, of Laurens, just over a year ago on a straightaway stretch of Highway 76 west of Laurens.
Three others in the vehicle that Maddie was in – her grandmother, Teresa Leopard; her mother, Chelsey Hines; and her sister, Kinsley Hines – were seriously injured in their red SUV that was T-boned by a white pickup truck that Arteaga was driving, The State alleged, recklessly.
Arteaga will serve 10 years in a state prison on a charge of reckless homicide, and 45 days for not having a South Carolina driver’s license, which is satisfied by the 438 days he has spent in the Johnson Detention Center awaiting trial. Prosecutors thought they were close to having Arteaga plead guilty last Wednesday, but he never did, opting for a jury trial instead. The defendant did not testify and did not make a pre-sentencing statement to the court.
Circuit Judge Frank Addy said because there was no acceptance of responsibility, he was not inclined to show mercy for Arteaga upon sentencing.
The Judge told Maddie’s father, Chris Hines, “Daughters have a special place in a father’s heart.”
He told the victim’s family, “Our Creator has created a better place for us and a better place for Maddie to go. She is saying to you, ‘I’m safe. I’m fine. And I love you.’ I am terribly sorry for your loss.”
And, to the audience, he said, “My father once told me, ‘The most dangerous thing you will ever do is get behind the wheel of a car,’” especially, The Judge said, as Arteaga did without bothering to learn the rules of the road and take a simple test that would show that he did know the rules of the road in the United States.
Eighth Circuit Solicitor David Stumbo said, after Arteaga serves his 10 years in prison, he will be turned over for deportation, likely by ICE out of Atlanta. Laurens County authorities successfully blocked deportation earlier, so Arteaga could be held for trial, when Addy revoked a bond set by a county magistrate. Giving this suspect a bond was “stunning,” Stumbo said, but the magistrate may have thought there was no choice.
Post-sentencing, Stumbo said, “If he had made bond, I don’t think we would have had this trial today.”
Stumbo said no amount of imprisonment can bring Maddie back, but he hoped the verdict would bring a degree of closure.
Defense attorney Zach Farr told the court that Arteaga is 26 years old, entered the U.S. on a work visa, legally, in Florida, moved to South Carolina in 2020, lived in Spartanburg, and has a 9th grade education. Although the defendant did not testify and Farr offered no witnesses, the Defense did present a case by cross-examination. It inferred that Arteaga and a man riding in the truck with him thought they were being chased on Chestnut Ridge Church Road, when they blew through the stop sign at the intersection of Hwy 76, just west of Laurens District High School, at an estimated 48 mph, or more, because the fact that the truck did not have the recommended tires made the speedometer register lower than the actual speed, an investigator said. The Defense case inferred that statements given to the Highway Patrol by a key witness were “not recalled” and the red SUV’s driver and occupants were distracted while driving and riding. He said The State did not present camera footage from Chestnut Ridge Baptist Church which could have shown how Arteaga was driving the white truck before it came to the intersection where the collision happened.
Farr reminded the jury that the chief medical examiner in this matter ruled Madison’s manner of death accidental, determining her cause of death to be blunt force trauma that separated her brain from her spine. Her heart would have kept beating for a short while, testified Dr. Michael E. Ward, the chief medical examiner of Greenville County.
Farr said this was an accident and “since when are accidents criminalized.”
The Hines family, along with Maddie’s grandmother, Teresa Leopard, and her uncle, Auston Leopard, asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence, to send Arteaga and others a message that human lives matter. Maddie’s mother, Chesley Hines, spoke to Arteaga saying that she hopes her words are to be what starts Arteaga on a journey of accepting Christ and taking responsibility for his actions. “I hope I leave a lasting impression on you, so when you tell the story of your life, you will use her name, Madison Hines.”
She said, “You took Maddie from me. You took my baby. You have taken no responsibility and that makes me mad.”
And she said to anyone who would be listening, “Whatever you have gone through in your life, God is not done with you.”
Madison Hines died December 8, 2023, a Sunday, the day her sister, Kinsley, was baptized, and was buried the subsequent Saturday – her 4th birthday. “She was small, but she had a big personality,” Teresa Leopard said. “I can hear in my head her saying, ‘I am 3, almost 4,’ over and over,” Chesley Hines said.
After the verdict and before the sentencing, Stumbo told the court that Arteaga was in this country illegally. He explained later, after court was adjourned, that he could not say that to the jury during the trial. But he thought it came through in testimony – a State Trooper said when he asked Arteaga for his South Carolina driver’s license, the homicide suspect gave the officer an ID card from Mexico, and Stumbo repeated that in his closing statement. It used to be that when setting bond, a judge/magistrate could not consider a suspect’s immigration status, but Stumbo said that state law has changed – “under the new bond law, immigration status is relevant,” the solicitor said, “and based on (Arteaga’s) immigration status, we took him back to court.” Judge Addy, who sentenced Arteaga on Wednesday, also was the judge who revoked Arteaga’s bond, keeping him in the county jail and away from federal immigration authorities, so he could stand trial in Laurens County where his crime took place. He will have a “hold” placed on him during the decade he spends in a South Carolina prison.
“We need to have a border that’s secure. I am confident that under the new administration, we will have a secure border. He came back (into the U.S.) under the previous administration, when we did not have a secure border, and it will be more secure now. … It was important for this family to have this trial,” Stumbo said.
