Left: Lauren A. Wegner (Legacy obituary). Center: Shane Jason Woods fighting with a U.S. Capitol Police officer on Jan. 6, 2021 (FBI court filing). Right: Shane Jason Woods (Sangamon County (Ill.) Sheriff’s Office).
The Jan. 6 defendant who drunkenly drove the wrong way down an Illinois highway and plowed into a woman, killing her and making her body so unrecognizable she had to be identified by her nail polish, is headed to prison.
Shane Jason Woods, 47, was sentenced to 17 years behind bars Wednesday for the death of 35-year-old Lauren Wegner near Springfield. A jury in April convicted him of reckless homicide, aggravated driving under the influence while causing death and aggravated fleeing and eluding — but cleared him of the first-degree murder charge that could have sent him to prison for life.
He was previously convicted of assaulting a press photographer and police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 before receiving a pardon from President Donald Trump.
Per the Illinois court, Woods must serve 85 percent of the 14 years he serves for the DUI charge plus 50 percent of the three years he received for the aggravated fleeing and eluding. The five-year sentence for reckless homicide will run concurrent with the other charges.
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Wegner’s parents and a close friend spoke to the judge before the sentencing, according to a courtroom report from the Chicago Sun-Times.
Her friend Meghan O’Dea turned toward Woods and reportedly said “this is what evil looks like.”
“You saw what he did to her,” she stated, adding her friend’s death filled her with “unadulterated rage.”
“Lauren had to be identified by the color of her nail polish,” she said.
Bill and Evelyn Wegner said their daughter was “beautiful both inside and out.”
Woods address the Wegners and her loved ones directly.
“That night, I took the sadness, the despair, the hopelessness and guilt, multiplied it by 1,000 and gave it to your family,” he reportedly said.
Woods, apparently upset after an argument and then facing a decade in prison for his role in the Jan. 6 riot, got behind the wheel on Nov. 8, 2022, after leaving a bar. He then sped away from a traffic stop before crashing head-on into the car driven by Lauren Wegner, killing her.
The now-convicted felon took the stand in his own defense at trial, Chicago Sun-Times reported. He spoke of how his involvement in the Capitol riot weighed on him and how he was “national news.”
“Millions and millions of people hated me,” he reportedly testified.
Woods said that as his marriage fell apart in 2019 and 2020, he began to closely follow politics. Asked if he was an “ardent” supporter of Trump, he reportedly said he was “an ardent supporter of Americans.”
Wegner’s parents wore her ashes is necklaces around their necks and held them as the verdict was read, per the Sun-Times. Her father told the newspaper afterward that he and his wife were “not totally happy with the verdict. But we can’t argue with the verdict.”
Woods’ attorneys had argued for the lesser verdict and his supporters quietly applauded in approval when the verdict was read, the Sun-Times reported.
During the trial, a police officer reportedly testified that when he pulled a speeding Woods over, the defendant told him he wanted to “end it.”
“‘It takes a big f—ing man to say what I’m about to say,'” the officer reportedly recalled Woods saying. “‘I’m gonna kill myself.'”
A former cop whose relative was dating Woods at the time saw him and also stopped. He could be heard on dashcam footage telling another officer that Woods was “involved in that Capitol deal.”
But Woods fled from the traffic stop, and sped north down the southbound lanes of I-55. Wegner happened to be driving south on the highway and collided head-on with Woods’ pickup truck. A fiery ball erupted after impact, instantly killing Wegner and breaking nearly every bone in her body, prosecutors reportedly said.
“Lauren died because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Prosecutor Derek Dion reportedly said during his opening statement. “And she couldn’t get out of the way.”
According to a police report, Woods’ blood alcohol level was .177 after the crash — more than twice the legal limit in Illinois.
Jurors also heard from a woman who was in another car at the time of the crash and was hit in the eye by flying glass, calling it the worst pain ever, the Sun-Times reported.
Prosecutors argued Woods knew there was a “strong probability” his actions could cause harm or death which is what led to the murder charge. But his defense attorneys noted that police originally arrested Woods for reckless homicide and not murder, per the Sun-Times.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the Illinois State Police trooper who provided the probable cause report for Woods’ arrest said in the report that while standing in the door to Woods room at the hospital where he was taken after the crash, the trooper overheard a conversation between Woods and a visitor.
“Nurses requested the visitors exit but prior to them leaving and while I was standing in the doorway of the treatment room, I overheard Woods speaking with a visitor, a white, middle age female, with blonde hair,” the trooper’s statement said. “During the conversation, I heard Woods state that he had intended on crashing his vehicle into a truck tractor semi-trailer.”
The state trooper said that Woods refused to answer questions after having been read his Miranda rights, but noted that “neighbours advised [him] later that an open 12oz Bud Light can had been located with the property that had been in Woods’ vehicle at the crash scene.”
Court records showed that he faced six charges, including first-degree murder, aggravated driving under the influence, and aggravated fleeing and eluding a peace officer.
The trooper described what may have been Woods’ mindset before the fatal crash.
“It should be noted through the course of the investigation I learned that Woods was a defendant in the January 6th, 2021 US Capitol Riots and was anticipating a sentence which may have been motive for the intentional traffic crash,” the trooper wrote.
Indeed, Woods had pleaded guilty in September 2022 to felony charges for assaulting a law enforcement officer and a member of the media during the Jan. 6 attack, when Trump supporters, angry over President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win, overwhelmed police and breached the building. Congress was forced to halt its certification of the Electoral College vote while lawmakers and staff either fled or sheltered in place.
In his guilty plea, Woods admitted to body-blocking a Capitol Police officer who had been hit with a chemical irritant during the melee and was pursuing the person who had sprayed her.
“As she did, Woods lowered his shoulder and rammed into her, knocking her off her feet and sending her crashing into a downed bicycle barricade,” the Justice Department had said in a press release announcing Woods’ guilty plea. “The officer felt immediate pain and the next day, she felt as if she had been ‘hit by a truck.'”
That first assault happened at around 2:10 p.m. that day. Hours later, Woods, by his own admission, went on the attack again after joining a group of rioters who were destroying media equipment.
“[H]e tossed some of it himself,” the DOJ press release said. “At the same time, a member of the news media attempted to walk away to protect himself and his camera. Woods took a running start and hit the man with a blindside shoulder tackle, knocking him to the ground and causing him to drop the camera.”
A judge had sentenced Woods to 54 months, or 4 1/2 years, in prison in October 2023.
That conviction was overturned when Trump issued a pardon to all Jan. 6 defendants shortly after being sworn into office in January.
If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 to reach the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.
