Judge Emily Jipp says it was because of the ‘justice and mercy’ of a family that the man who killed their eight-month-old daughter in a fatal drunk driving crash would not be spending life in prison.
Terry Boss, 56, was sentenced to 13.5 years in prison last week for the April 2025 crash that killed Lucia Iris Seifried. Boss pleaded no contest to second-degree murder, according to court records, but in court, the judge said Boss pleaded guilty.
The case dates back to April 26 on Baseline Road near Base Line Lake in Allegan County.
“This case is about arrogance, toxic, unrelenting arrogance of a man who believed the rules didn’t apply to him and whose statements right up and through his interview with probation continue to be soaked in entitlement,” Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Jessica Winsemius said.
Winsemius says Boss went beyond drinking and driving. She says he and some other people started the morning with breakfast Bloody Marys, drove to the golf course where they continued to drink, took shots before they left the course, and continued drinking at a lake house. She says Boss drove to all these locations.
She says he then got back into his car, where he was nearly three times the legal limit “in defendant’s own words: ‘after having enough to drink to have a good time.’”
Winsemius says he was driving down the road in such a manner that people stopped to look at his driving, describing it as “flying, spitting gravel, and ‘hauling a**.’”
The Seifried family was in their yard with their dog, as the Allegan County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) said Boss’s pickup truck crossed the center line and side-swiped another truck. That collision forced Boss to careen off the road and into the family.
