A Kansas mother convicted of involuntary manslaughter in a 2022 car crash that killed three Girl Scouts − including her daughter − deflected blame, questioned the fairness of her trial and expressed optimism she would avoid prison during recorded jailhouse phone calls.
Amber Peery, 35, was found guilty in August of three felony counts of involuntary manslaughter, two felony counts of aggravated battery and two traffic violations in a wreck on the Kansas Turnpike after she made an illegal U-turn and her vehicle was struck by a semi truck.
In a series of calls hours after being found guilty, Peery alleged misconduct in the judicial system. “It’s so rigged,” she said, adding that, “I feel like the (expletive) jurors were paid off or something.”
In a September call, Peery was optimistic she would get probation. “This is a vacation at a two-star hotel and it’s almost done,” she said, appearing to laugh.
The recordings were played during Peery’s first sentencing hearing Friday.
Amber Peery was in the courtroom Friday afternoon for the first day of her sentencing hearing.
The proceedings came two days after a mother notorious for killing her children was denied parole in South Carolina. The state’s parole board denied a request for release from prison by Susan Smith, convicted in 1995 of drowning her two young boys in a high-profile case that caused astonishment over a mother killing her own children.
Peery, whose sentencing was continued to Dec. 3, was driving five girls in her van on Topeka’s I-335 as they headed to a Girl Scouts event Oct. 8, 2022. Two of the children were injured but survived, including her younger daughter.
Peery’s lawyers have asked Shawnee County District Judge Jessica Heinen for a “non-prison sanction,” saying she’s enduring mental health issues that would be better treated outside prison. Peery’s supporters also say her two living children would benefit from her presence at home.
Families of the victims are pursuing a tougher sentence.
What Amber Peery said in jailhouse calls
At one point during the jail calls, Peery said, “I wish I would have taken a plea.” She appeared to say that she rejected an offer from prosecutors to plead guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter in exchange for dropping the third count.
In a September call, Peery said the semi driver “should have seen my (expletive) blinker and braked.” She said she never saw the truck. “I literally didn’t know what (expletive) hit me,” she said. “I thought a bomb went off.”
In another call, she suggested her own vehicle was faulty in how it took the impact. “Everyone pinned this (expletive) (expletive) on me,” Peery said.
At one point, Peery weighed how the convictions would impact her chances of getting custody of her children.
“Kansas likes to keep families together. This is a case where I shouldn’t be taken from my kids,” Peery said, before acknowledging the convictions would make it difficult.
“It was a true accident anyway,” Peery added. “I hope the judge sees that.”
In an October video call, Peery said of the prosecutor: “He’s just a … you know.”
“They’re really out for me. I understand that the other families are suffering too,” she said before being cut off by noise in the background of the other person on the call.
Amber Peery looks back at supporters in the gallery during Thursday’s preliminary hearing at the Shawnee County Courthouse in Topeka, Kansas.
Amber Peery: ‘I didn’t kill three children. I got in a car accident’
Peery paced around the jail room and blamed the Kansas Highway Patrol for what she considered a shoddy investigation.
“Everything just went toward me,” Peery said. “It’s not fair. It’s just not.”
She also blamed the truck driver and made it sound like having her blinker light on negated her culpability in the illegal U-turn. And she also accused the other parents of committing perjury on the stand during her trial.
This diagram illustrating what happened in an Oct. 8 triple fatality crash on the Kansas Turnpike southwest of Topeka is part of a Kansas Highway Patrol accident report detailing circumstances of that crash.
Later in the video, she said she read a newspaper article while in jail. “I just cried,” Peery said. “I’m just tired. It was an accident. I didn’t kill three children. I got in a car accident.”
What happened in deadly Topeka Girl Scouts crash?
Peery was driving the children as part of a three-vehicle caravan heading to a Girl Scouts event in Tonganoxie, about 35 miles away, but she and the other drivers took the wrong ramp to the Kansas Turnpike at the south Topeka interchange. The southbound lanes have no off-ramps or legal turnaround spots for 30 miles, so the trio of drivers made illegal U-turns through an opening in the turnpike barrier wall.
The first two vehicles made it through safely. But Peery’s vehicle was hit by a semi truck, killing three girls while injuring two other children and Peery.
This statement by driver Amber Peery was part of a Kansas Highway Patrol accident report acquired recently by The Capital-Journal.
Peery has been held in the Shawnee County jail since Aug. 15, the day a jury convicted her at the end of a four-day trial. That day also would have been the 11th birthday of one of the victims, Kylie Lunn.
Killed in the wreck were Kylie, who was 9; Laila El Azri, who was also 9; and 8-year-old Brooklyn Peery, the daughter of Peery. Injured were her then 5-year-old daughter Carrington Peery and then 9-year-old Gabriella Ponomarez.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: What mom convicted in Kansas Girl Scouts deaths said in jail calls
