Wisconsin man gets 25 years for road-rage murder on Edens
Killer stabbed fellow trucker in fight on expressway's shoulder
By Brian Cox, Special to the Tribune6:42 PM CST, December 30, 2010
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David Seddon apologized in the Skokie courtroom to the victim's family, who appealed for the maximum sentence of 60 years for the Jan. 15 road rage attack, in which Seddon stabbed Alan Lauritzen to death near Northbrook.
Lauritzen's widow, Lauren, tearfully told Seddon during the hearing that "you have taken my best friend, my soul mate."
Statements were also read from the couple's two teenage children, who attended the hearing.
"I wish heaven had a phone so I can hear your voice again," Lauritzen's daughter, Britani, 16, wrote of her father, in a statement read by prosecutor Cathy Crowley.
In his statement, Lauritzen's son, Alexander, 18, wrote of how he's struggled to come to terms with his father's death.
"I don't want to get out of bed in the morning because I'm scared something bad will happen to my family because of what happened to my dad," he wrote. "I wish he was here with me now. I also wish you never see the light of day again."
Seddon, 49, of Racine, said he regrets he "can't go back and change what I did. The biggest problem is that there was too much testosterone involved … stupid human pride."
Yet he and his lawyer both said they didn't think his action rose to first-degree murder, the crime for which he was convicted on Nov. 18.
Authorities have said Seddon and Lauritzen dueled for about 11 miles along the Edens until one of them yelled into his CB: "Let's do it!" They pulled over and got into a fistfight that ended with Seddon stabbing Lauritzen, 40, of Sparta, Wis.
Cook County Circuit Judge Larry Axelrood, who convicted Seddon after a two-day bench trial, called him "a fundamentally good man who made a catastrophic decision."
"I don't think you did this casually," the judge said. "I think this was the worst decision of your life."
