GUILTY GA - Five people killed in fiery hit & run crash, Fulton County, 12 April 2009

The mother of a woman accused of killing five people in a hit-and-run wreck on Easter Sunday in 2009 pleaded guilty to charges that she helped to cover up the incident, prosecutors said Monday.

Sheila Michael was indicted on counts of tampering with evidence and hindering the apprehension of a criminal after police alleged that she helped to repair her daughter's damaged BMW. The mother pleaded guilty to those charges, the Fulton County District Attorney's office said, adding that she will be sentenced after her daughter's trial.

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Michael fled and tried to cover up her role by arranging repairs to the BMW she had been driving. Her mother, Sheila Michael, pleaded guilty on Oct. 15 to helping with the cover-up.

Adams showed the least mercy to the mother: she sentenced Sheila Michael to the maximum eight years in prison for failing to turn her daughter in to police -- more than even prosecutors had recommended.

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The prosecution and the defense agree that the BMW and the Mercedes bumped off each other in the eastbound lane and then spun out of control into oncoming traffic. The only question is who caused the initial bump. What happened next is fairly clear, according to witness accounts, autopsies and crash scene reconstructions: The Mercedes collided with a Volkswagen Beetle, then burst into flames.

A medical examiner testified that Robert and Delisia Carter died on impact in the Mercedes and that their 2-month-old son, Ethan Carter, and Delisia Carter’s daughter Kayla Lemons, 9, were killed almost instantly from the heat of the fire.

In the Volkswagen, Morgan Johnson, 6, was killed. Her mother, Tracie, 43, survived but suffered broken legs, a broken hip and collarbone and damage to her spleen and liver. A Grady Memorial Hospital surgeon who operated on Johnson said he spent eight hours working on her multiple broken bones and that a third of patients with similar injuries die.

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A judge in Fulton County, Georgia, sentenced a woman to 36 years in prison Thursday for her role in an Easter Sunday car wreck last year that left five people dead, and for her subsequent role in trying to cover it up.

Aimee Michael sat expressionless as her sentence was read -- guilty of homicide by vehicle in the first degree, serious injury by vehicle, hit and run, reckless driving, failure to maintain lane and tampering with evidence. She also received 14 years' probation and was ordered not to operate a motor vehicle and to surrender her driver's license.

Michael's mother, Sheila Michael, was sentenced to eight years for tampering with evidence and hindering her daughter's apprehension.

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