Utahn sent to prison for shooting, killing man on I-15 almost 16 years ago

SALT LAKE CITY — A 35-year-old father of four told a judge he has changed since he fired a gun on I-15, killing the driver of another car — 18-year-old Cesar Ramirez — during rush hour traffic on Jan. 9, 2009.

“Those were the actions of a 19-year-old who was lost in life. … I’m not the same person who made that mistake almost 16 years ago,” Aaron J. Paul Campbell said at his sentencing Thursday.

The man said he takes full responsibility for what he did, but he also said all five of the people involved in the incident in his car and the victims are also to blame for what happened.

Police say Ramirez and his brother were in a Jeep Grand Cherokee that day and had been in an ongoing argument with Campbell and two others who were in a Nissan Maxima — Nicholas Dean MacNeil, then 20, and Matthew James Day, then 23. Day, who was driving, said the occupants of the Jeep made gang signs and Ramirez’s brother threw a bottle at the Maxima. The Maxima then followed the Jeep and pulled up next to them on I-15. Campbell had a .40-caliber pistol and MacNeil had a .410 shotgun, and they both fired at the Jeep in rush hour traffic, according to court documents.

Read the full story and more from Emily Ashcraft on ksl.com.

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