More six months after losing her daughter in a motorcycle crash, a Spokane mother sobbed as she pleaded with a judge Friday to keep the driver - her son - out of prison.

“I’m just lost without my kids. Not only have I lost one, but I’ve lost two,” said Janice Tensley.

Tensley then turned to Deputy Spokane County Prosecutor Mark Cipolla. “I think you have a personal vendetta against my child…I don’t know why you hate him. I don’t know why you dislike him,” she said before Judge Maryann Moreno stopped her.

Cipolla didn’t respond. Minutes later, Tensley’s son, Lamont A. Brooks, 30, was sentenced to 3 years and 5 months in prison for the April 17 crash at 5th Avenue and Lee Street that killed Phyllis K. “P.K” Darrough, 33.

Moreno called a brief recess after hearing emotional testimony from Brooks’ family, who filled courtroom pews, some openly sobbing, to meet with Cipolla and defense attorney David Miller. Read the rest of my story here.

The sentencing hearing was extremely emotional.

At one point, a sister of Brooks' turned to Cipolla as she stood at the podium and made a lunging motion at him as she said, "This is not on Lamont, Mark." A sheriff's deputy stood but sat back down as Brooks' father led his daughter back to the court pews.

While Brooks' family has been marred by crime, an article from 1996 spotlights a daughter who'd done particularly well.

Read that story here.

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