Background: Eri Otoniel Roblero Perez (WYFF). Insets, from left: Dereon Robinson and Mikhail’lee Smith (DHS).
A man is headed to prison for decades after he struck two South Carolina boys who were riding bicycles in front of their parents after he drank 15 beers.
Eri Otoniel Roblero Perez, 31, pleaded guilty to two counts of driving under the influence resulting in death for killing 8-year-old Mikhail’lee Smith and 12-year-old Dereon Robinson. A judge on Monday sentenced Roblero Perez to 40 years in prison, court records say.
The crash occurred on April 12 on Ashville Highway in Spartanburg County.
Mikhail’lee and Dereon, who were close friends, were riding their bikes on the sidewalk while their parents followed behind in a car. At the same time, Roblero Perez was driving east in a Honda Accord on Ashville Highway.
“Dereon’s last words to me was ‘Go ahead Mom, I love you,'” recalled his mother, Megan Wilson, in an interview with local NBC affiliate WYFF.
Suddenly, the Honda barreled over Dereon and Mikhail’lee and struck a fence and tree as Wilson watched in horror.
Wilson rushed to her son and his friend but could do little to save them.
“I might have been granted the one thing that most parents aren’t granted, which is to hold my son in that last moment and give him a kiss and be able to say my prayers and to be with him,” she told WYFF.
Paramedics rushed the victims to the hospital, where they died.
Cops noted that Roblero Perez was unsteady on his feet. They found several open containers of beer in the car. He later told investigators he drank 15 beers the previous night and eight more the next morning to quell a hangover. He said he was driving a family member to a laundromat when the crash occurred.
Roblero Perez’s blood alcohol content was 0.264, more than three times the legal limit.
“This is a parent’s worst nightmare — when you see children die like this because of someone’s lawlessness and total disregard for those around him,” Solicitor Barry Barnette told WYFF.
Wilson said simple things, such as gathering for dinner, are difficult.
“Both of them were special. They were. They didn’t deserve this by any means. When I call for dinner, it makes it a little bit harder because I’m used to calling four names instead of three,” Wilson told the TV station. “For my son to be killed doing the one thing that he loved and for me to have to watch it, and my 10-year-old. It’s what no mother wants.
Roblero Perez, a Mexican national, was in the country illegally and will be deported after he serves his prison sentence.
