SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – A judge Monday denied a motion to vacate the conviction of a woman who died before she was set to be sentenced in a 2019 DUI crash that killed a toddler.
Shona Wallace, 53, was hospitalized on April 4 and died days later, before her sentencing, which was set for May 6. She was convicted in March on counts of DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide and DUI causing serious bodily injury.
The motion from her lawyers on April 29 asked the judge to vacate her conviction since she is no longer alive.
The crash happened in June 2019 on Maitland Boulevard near Eden Park Road in Altamonte Springs.
According to police, Wallace drove onto a sidewalk and hit a family of three who were on a bicycle ride. The crash killed 17-month-old Adalyn Zisa and injured the girl’s father, who was left with a traumatic brain injury.
Shannon Zisa, Adalyn’s mother, said the new motion just continues to drag out her ability to find closure and move on with her family.
“To have to keep coming back here for things like this, it’s just so unfair,” Shannon Zisa said.
“Adalyn is the good that I’m able to do in this world and I want the focus to be on things like that,” she added. “Not on what the defendant did.”
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