BROWNSTOWN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WXYZ) — After Marshella Chidester was sentenced Thursday for her involvement in the Swan Boat Club tragedy last year, the father of the two children who were killed, Brian Phillips, invited us for an intimate conversation about closure at their gravesite.
Watch the report in the video player below:
Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Daniel White sentenced 67-year-old Marshella Chidester to 25 to 50 years in prison Thursday for driving her vehicle into a children's birthday party in April 2024, killing two young siblings.
Watch our coverage of the sentencing in the video player below:
The sentence is effectively a life term for Chidester, who was twice over the legal alcohol limit when she crashed into the Swan Boat Club and killed 4-year-old Zayn Phillips and 8-year-old Alanah Phillips.
Brian Phillips, along with the children's mother Mariah Dodds, who was also injured in the crash, gave powerful victim impact statements before the sentence came down.
”I wish I was alert that day. I would’ve been able to kiss my kids one last time and tell them I love them," Dodds said through tears.
Watch the parents' impact statements in the video players below:
Brian Phillips spends many of his days at Our Lady of Hope Cemetery in Brownstown Township. It's where both of his children were laid to rest last year.
“It’s my safe place," he said. “I come here after trial, I came here after all the court dates just to keep them updated, like I feel like that’s my only way of being close to them.”
After calling this the most heartbreaking case the court had ever seen, White sentenced Marshella and told her, "the jury got it right."
Like with all big news, Brian Phillips raced out of the courthouse to tell his children.
“Babies, we did it. It’s been a long, long fight," Brian Phillips said to the gravesite of his two children. “I feel like justice had been served for them."
Watch our extended interview with Brian Phillips at the cemetery below:
Brian Phillips celebrated both of his children's birthday's at the grave, even bringing gifts and dressing up as Zayn's favorite superhero, Spiderman.
“I did it for the joy of them," he said.
Now, Brian Phillips and the rest of the family begin their own healing journey, as they say after Thursday, a bit of closure has finally been reached.
“She don’t ever need to be out and she can see her family, right? She can visit her family. This is how I'm visiting them," Brian Phillips said at the grave.
