Young driver sentenced to 16 years in prison for death of two passengers
For each of the eight years that will follow his release from prison, Kieffer Michel must mark the anniversary of their deaths by placing flowers on the graves of Brittney Griffey and Kristin Eggert.
So he is ordered by Marquette County Judge Richard Wright; Michel will begin that phase of his sentence after completing a 16-year prison sentence on two homicide charges.
“I wish that I would have died,” Michel told Wright.
There was a point, Michel’s mother told Wright, when she wished the same.
An ‘unimaginable’ loss
At the hearing Wednesday, there were no dry eyes among the family members of Eggert and Griffey, and few among Michel’s family members, who crowded into the courtroom.
Michel spent much of the hearing with his head lowered, his eyes down. Once, he looked up and nodded: when his defense attorney, Dennis Ryan of Madison, said that Michel deserved prison.
The loss to the girls’ families is “unimaginable,” Ryan said.


