Background: River Road in Selkirk, N.Y. (Google Maps). Inset (left): Jacklyn Parker (Albany County District Attorney”s Office). Inset (right): Colleen Selkirk (Babcock Funeral Home).
Jacklyn Parker, aged 25, admitted guilt to the charge of criminally negligent homicide this past July, following an incident nearly a year earlier. The crash, which took place in Selkirk, upstate New York, resulted in the death of 60-year-old Colleen Selkirk. According to the Albany County District Attorney’s Office, Parker, while driving on River Road on August 19, 2024, suffered an epileptic seizure. This episode caused her vehicle to swerve across the road’s median and collide head-on with Selkirk’s car.
Parker and her passenger survived the crash with injuries that were not life-threatening, whereas Selkirk was tragically declared dead at the scene.
The District Attorney’s Office revealed that Parker had been explicitly advised by her doctor against driving unless she adhered to her medication regimen. In the aftermath of the accident, Parker confessed to the authorities that she had neglected her medication for over a week, leading to her seizure just moments before the collision.
Parker’s sentencing was initially set for September after her guilty plea on July 15. However, complications arose when she was charged with driving while intoxicated (DWI) in the same month. Prosecutors urged the judge to take this new charge into account during Parker’s sentencing, which took place on Monday.
After Parker entered her plea on July 15, she was scheduled to be sentenced in September. However, she was charged with DWI the same month, which prosecutors asked the judge to consider when handing down Parker’s sentence on Monday.
According to courtroom reporting by local NBC affiliate WNYT, Parker apologized to Selkirk’s family before her sentence was handed down. Selkirk’s daughter, Katherine Giordano, also spoke at the hearing, asking, “How do you explain to children so little, who loved their Nana so much, that they will never see her again? [One child] still sometimes asks me if her Nana is ‘feeling better yet.’”
Parker was sentenced to 16 months to four years in prison, slightly more than the one to three years that was originally going to be handed down.
