LANCASTER – A Lancaster County jury convicted a Philadelphia commercial truck driver of killing a father and his two children in an early morning crash along the PA Turnpike while he was distracted by his phone behind the wheel following a three-day trial. A jury found 31-year-old Santos Valentin guilty of three counts of homicide by vehicle and three counts of involuntary manslaughter. The jury returned their guilty verdict after about an hour of deliberation. The judge, who presided over the trial, also found Valentin guilty of six summary traffic offenses. The crash killed 43-year-old Donnell Hickson of Baldwin, N.Y., his 18-year-old son, and his 11-year-old daughter. Valentin’s FedEx tractor-trailer rear-ended the Hicksons’ vehicle before pushing it into a drainage culvert near mile marker 268.7 in Penn Township in July 2024. Valentin will be sentenced at a later date.
SANTOS VALENTIN