Man sentenced after faked death

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A drunk driver who faked his own death to escape charges in a fatal crash was very much alive in court Monday, as a judge sent him off to prison.

Byron Shane Carpenter, 30, planted his own obituary in the Albuquerque Journal in March.

The following month, his former attorney was fooled into filing a notice with the court, notifying the judge she had information he was dead. But he wasn’t.

Carpenter was eventually arrested in April, hiding under a pile of rocks in Lincoln County.

“This is not the life I wanted to live,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter was drunk behind the wheel during a 2006 crash in Edgewood that ended in the death of a woman and severe injuries to her elderly stepfather.

His obituary appeared one month after he racked up another DWI charge in February 2009.

“This is the first time I can remember that somebody faked their own death to avoid sentencing in a case where you lost a life,” Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office spokesperson Pat Davis said.

The defendant cried in court, along with family members who told Judge Stan Whitaker that Carpenter has a problem with alcohol. Carpenter apologized to the victims and the victims’ family.

“I hope they can forgive me because I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself,” Carpenter said.

Shortly after Carpenter spoke, the judge handed down a nine year sentence, but two years were suspended.

“At some point somebody’s got to say ‘enough is enough’,” Whitaker said. “We’re going to do that today.”

According to the DA's office, charges are possible for whoever helped Carpenter fake his death.

“Anybody who aided him in evading arrest or prosecution in this case is subject to prosecution under the law and we’re going to get law enforcement to look at it,” Davis said.