By Jeremy Z. Young

Contonia Wright knew in May that she wouldn’t be pleased with the sentence her daughter’s killer would receive.
Patrick Phillip Schlueb, 28, could be out of jail within a year of his July 9 sentencing hearing.

“Thirty percent and a year’s credit gives us only one year,” Wright said to Knox County Criminal Court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz.

Schlueb was leaving a probation office on Elm Street when he struck Wright’s daughter, Elizabeth Bush, killing her. Bush, a Fulton High School student, would’ve graduated in May. Two other students, Ashley Jernigan and Lance Ferguson, were also struck as they walked to a nearby gas station with Bush.

According to Court records, Schlueb sped away from the scene, stopping at a Wal-Mart to replace a headlight, concealing that his vehicle had been involved in a crash.

Schlueb would later tell police that he had briefly glanced away from the road, looked up and saw the teens in the street.
Schlueb had been on probation after a 2005 statutory rape conviction in Sevier County.

Schlueb pleaded guilty to four counts of a nine count indictment in May of this year. He pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide in regard to Bush’s death, two counts of reckless aggravated assault for injuring Ferguson and Jernigan and one count of leaving the scene of the accident.

Schlueb could have been sentenced to the maximum 3 to 15 years imprisonment, but he was listed as a standard offender, making him eligible for an automatic 30 percent reduction.

Under that guideline, Schlueb was sentenced to 6 years for Bush’s death, four years for each assault and two years for leaving the scene of the accident.

As a standard offender, Schlueb can also serve those sentences concurrently.

Since Schlueb was on probation at the time of the incident, Judge Leibowitz ordered him to serve the two-year jail sentence from that conviction as well. He will serve that sentence consecutively.

Wright isn’t happy that Schlueb will be eligible for parole after serving a third of his total sentence – 2.5 years. Considering the year and five months Schlueb has already spent in jail, he could be paroled as early as next year.

Judge Leibowitz said the law didn’t give her much freedom in changing the sentence, one way or another.

“This family has lost more than a life sentence,” Leibowitz told Schlueb during the sentencing process. “You haven’t done what a life sentence calls for.”