Driver Sentenced to Prison in Boy’s Death : Courts: Woman gets five-year term for hitting the 13-year-old and leaving him to die. She said she thought she had hit a dog.

A woman driver who told authorities after her arrest that she thought she had hit a dog was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison for running down a 13-year-old Woodland Hills boy and leaving him to die.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Michael Hoff ordered Joan Mills, 60, to serve four years in prison for vehicular manslaughter in the death of Matthew Fischer on Nov. 19, 1993. Mills was sentenced to an additional year in prison on a felony hit-and-run conviction.

Family members and friends of Matthew who attended the court hearing asked Hoff to impose the maximum sentence on Mills.

“The horror and pain of losing a child is like losing a piece of yourself and you’re never whole again,” said Matthew’s mother, Carol Fischer. “When you lose a parent, you lose your past . . . but when you lose a child, you lose your future.”

Matthew’s 11-year-old brother, Cory, told the judge that he has trouble sleeping and, despite having often fought with his brother, “I will always miss him.”

“I’m now an only child, something I never wanted or expected,” Cory said.

“Every day that I cross the street, I think of him,” said Jereme Albin, 14, who had been friends with Matthew since both were in kindergarten.

But Hoff said he could not impose the maximum sentence on Mills because the case did meet the requirements of the law. He turned down a request by defense attorney Ira Salzman to impose probation because Mills appeared to lack remorse for the death of the boy, an eighth-grader at the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies. Matthew had stepped off a bus and was crossing Oxnard Street when he was struck by Mills’ car.

“Mrs. Mills does not have any care or concern for anyone but herself,” Hoff said in court. “. . . I would like to impose the longer term, but I must follow the law.”

Hoff added that he did not believe Mills’ excuse for not stopping at the scene.

Although he had asked for the maximum seven-year sentence, outside court, Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Schuit said he accepted the judge’s decision.

Matthew’s father, Herman Fischer, said he was satisfied with the sentence, and “now we can go on with living the rest of our lives.”

Salzman said he intends to appeal the conviction.

A jury took less than a day to convict Mills on both felony charges May 9. During the trial, Mills testified that she thought she had the right of way when she drove through the intersection of Shoup Avenue and Oxnard Street in Woodland Hills. She said her attention was momentarily diverted by a motorist who tried to turn in front of her.

Mills said she then saw some kind of a flash, but thought that she had hit a dog and continued driving home. Her husband later went to the scene of the accident and led police back to his Woodland Hills home.

Witnesses, including some of Matthew’s classmates, contradicted Mills’ testimony, saying she ran a red light at high speed and turned to wag her finger at a motorist who had tried to turn in front of her.