Driver gets life for smuggling deaths

By JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago

A truck driver was spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison Thursday for his role in the nation's deadliest human smuggling attempt — a journey that ended in the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants crammed in a sweltering tractor-trailer.

Tyrone Williams, 36, was convicted last month on 58 counts of conspiracy, harboring and transporting immigrants.

A jury deliberated for a little more than 5 days before deciding to send Williams to prison without the possibility of parole for each of the immigrants who died from dehydration, overheating and suffocation during the 2003 trip from South Texas to Houston.

In May 2003, his tractor-trailer was packed with more than 70 immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic. As temperatures skyrocketed inside the airtight refrigerator truck, the immigrants kicked walls, clawed at insulation, broke out taillights and screamed for help.

Williams abandoned the trailer at a truck stop near Victoria, about 100 miles southwest of Houston.