*Trucker sentenced to two years in fatal I-81 crash

By Preston Knight -- pknight@nvdaily.com

WOODSTOCK -- A truck driver was sentenced to two years behind bars Wednesday afternoon in Shenandoah County General District Court for two charges of reckless driving that killed a pair of Houston brothers on Interstate 81 last summer.

Pawandeep Singh, 22, of Reston, was sentenced by Judge Amy B. Tisinger after a plea agreement amending two charges of involuntary manslaughter down to misdemeanor reckless driving was accepted. In addition to two years of incarceration, the defendant must pay a $5,000 fine, and his license is suspended in Virginia for a year.

Singh was behind the wheel of a 2006 Peterbilt tractor-trailer that rear-ended a Honda occupied by Stone T. Weeks, 24, and his 20-year-old brother, William "Holt" Weeks, on July 23 at about 10:15 p.m. at northbound mile marker 296.

The car was then pushed underneath another tractor-trailer, and all three vehicles caught fire.

Traffic had stopped because of an earlier crash at mile marker 302. Driver inattention on Singh's part was to blame for the brothers' deaths.

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