A man who killed two Valencia teens in a street racing traffic collision in February 2016 was denied parole this week by the California Board of Parole Hearings.
Dealio Lockhart – who was convicted and sentenced to state prison for more than two decades after pleading guilty to the crash that killed Valencia teenagers Brian Lewandowski, 18, and Michelle Littlefield, 19 – was up for possible parole to due a recent change in the law through Proposition 57 (The Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016).
Scott Treadway, 52, a UPS truck driver from Mira Loma, was also killed, after Lockhart’s car flew into the truck while racing another vehicle on Interstate 5 in Commerce, and another man in the crash remains in a coma still to this day, according to Willy Littlefield, father of Michelle Littlefield.
The deceased were students at College of the Canyons, and worked at Six Flags Magic Mountain. They were returning from a trip to Disneyland with two others.
In an email distributed Thursday with the subject line “Nonviolent Parole Review Decision,” the California Board of Parole Hearings informed the victims’ families that Lockhart’s parole had been denied.
“The Board of Parole Hearings has conducted its review and has denied the inmate for release,” the letter reads. “The inmate will likely be screened again for possible referral to the board in a year so long as the inmate remains eligible for the Nonviolent Offender Parole Review Process.”
Proposition 57 now requires the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to change how individuals convicted of a nonviolent felony are considered for early parole.
Littlefield told The Signal last month that the way he and his family members were first informed that Lockhart was set to be considered for parole as a result of Prop. 57 was through the family of the man in a coma being the only one to receive the first notice that Lockhart would be given an opportunity before the parole board.
Littlefield told the The Signal in a previous story that he did not “think it’s going to be fair, that (Lockhart), who got 22 years, is going to be out dancing on the street while (the other man) is still in a coma.”
The announcement of parole consideration in the case has been met with the ire of the family members of some of the victims, Littlefield and his niece, Candace Zipperer, said last month. Littlefield’s family was particularly upset at the classification of the crime being considered “non-violent” in the eyes of Prop. 57.
“Dealio Lockhart perhaps is sorry for his violent crime, (but) this does not negate the fact that on this Earth he must serve his justified prison sentence for the full duration of 22 years,” Zipperer said in a letter to L.A. County District Attorney Goerge Gascón, and the state’s Board of Parole Hearings. “He answers to us, the People, and God the Almighty.”
