UTICA - Friends and family of Cheryl Rettig packed an Oneida County courtroom today for the sentencing of her killer.

Cheryl Rettig was 18 years old in May, looking forward to graduating high school, and then going to college in Philadelphia.

But on May 31, her parents got the phone call every parent dreads. There had been a car crash. When they got to the hospital, they had only minutes to make agonizing decisions about their daughter's life.

"We must let the doctor know within ten minutes if we want him to try," said William Borrill, a Rettig family friend. "However, five minutes later he's back because the swelling is too fast; we must give him an answer right now."

The Rettigs say the statement their family friend read in court today was physically painful to write. But not as painful as losing their daughter.

"The pain she feels is of her chest being crushed," mother Pam Rettig wrote, read by Borrill as he addressed Woods. "You took her daughter away creating a hole in her family."

For creating that painful, permanent void in the Rettig family, John Woods pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide. Police say he was driving 85 miles an hour this past May when he crashed his car, killing Cheryl Rettig.

"It was something that could have been prevented by a better decision," Woods said. "And for that I'm sorry that a poor decision on my behalf cost somebody their life."

In closing, the Rettigs, through their attorney and friend, asked the man responsible for their daughter's death, to take a long hard look at his own life.

"If John wants at all to honor her memory, he will accept his punishment for exactly what it is, and from this moment on drastically change the direction of his life," Borrill said.