Truck driver charged in deadly crash pleads guilty

Five years in prison, five on probation for death of GS nursing students

John Wayne Johnson sits at a courtroom table before pleading guilty to five counts of first-degree vehicular homicide and other charges in Pembroke on Thursday. Johnson was driving a tractor-trailer that slammed into stalled traffic on Interstate 16 west of Savannah on April 22, 2015. The collision killed five nursing students from Georgia Southern University. - photo by Associated Press

W Deadly Crash Georgia Ledb — John Wayne Johnson sits at a courtroom table before pleading guilty to five counts of first-degree vehicular homicide and other charges in Pembroke on Thursday. Johnson was driving a tractor-trailer that slammed into stalled traffic on Interstate 16 west of Savannah on April 22, 2015. The collision killed five nursing students from Georgia Southern University. - photo by Associated Press

PEMBROKE — A Louisiana truck driver charged in a fiery interstate crash that killed five nursing students in southeast Georgia was sentenced to prison Thursday — one year for each life lost — after he pleaded guilty to first-degree vehicular homicide and other crimes. A judge gave John Wayne Johnson five years in prison plus an additional five years on probation. The plea deal with prosecutors spared Johnson, 56, of Shreveport, Louisiana, from a possible punishment of 93 years in prison if he had been convicted at a trial.

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