Driver In Crash That Killed Alice Yuan Sentenced

ARAPAHOE COUNTY, CO — A woman was sentenced to 12 years in prison for vehicular homicide in the death of Alice Yuan, the Office of the District Attorney for the 18th Judicial District announced Thursday.

Cayla Cushman was driving while she was high on methamphetamine when she struck and killed Yuan in Columbine Valley on Feb. 16, 2020, the district attorney's office said. Yuan, 60, was a mother and grandmother.

Yuan was driving home after working a 10-hour shift at her restaurant job when Cushman drove her truck over the center line on South Platte Canyon Road and into oncoming traffic. She crashed head on into Yuan's car, prosecutors said. Yuan was pronounced dead soon after.

Yuan's family "lost a mom, a wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt and a grandmother to six grandchildren,” one of Yuan's daughters said in a statement at Cushman's sentencing hearing. “She only stood 5 feet tall, yet she carried so much on her shoulders and did all this with a smile and a laugh.”

Yuan's family urged the judge to impose the maximum sentence on Cushman, who had been convicted of drunken driving in two previous cases, the district attorney's office said.

“Our father has been disabled for many years now, and our mother was by his side every day,” another daughter said in a statement read by Senior Deputy District Attorney Megan Brewer. “The fact that the defendant was acting selfishly and decided to speed down a small street that is only 35 mph while under the influence and having been convicted twice prior upsets and infuriates me. My mother did not deserve to die.”

Cushman’s previous convictions, probation and substance abuse treatment had failed to change her behavior, Brewer said. “We don’t know the real number of times this defendant has driven while under the influence, but we know she has been convicted twice,” Brewer said in her sentencing argument. “And this time she was under an interlock device, under the influence of meth, and she still chose to drive that night.”

Arapahoe County District Court Judge Darren Vahle imposed the maximum sentence allowed on Cushman under the plea agreement. “Whether you had a gun and killed someone or drove your car drunk and killed someone, a family is destroyed," Vahle said. "The devastation you brought is overwhelming. You had no right to drive. You had been using an illegal substance. Yet you got behind the wheel, and that caused a death. … It was your choices and your decisions.”