“You’re a good kid that made a bad decision,” Randolph County Judge Jeremy Walker told Jayden Ethington before a packed courtroom on the morning of March 6 at the Randolph County Courthouse.
A large amount of family and friends of both Kimberly Martin and Ethington had come to the courthouse to see what sentence Ethington would be receiving.
“No matter what the court rules, you’re not a bad person,” Walker continued. “Really good people can make bad decisions.”
On Nov. 7, 2025, Ethington, 23, of Sparta, had entered into a negotiated plea of guilty to the charge of an aggravated DUI crash resulting in a death.
For more on Ethington, please see this week’s print edition.