'Keep going,' voices told Wilkinsburg driver. He did, someone died, and now he's headed to prison

The voices were telling him he didn’t have to stop.

As Jack Lamont Sherwood fled from Monroeville police at more than 100 mph on Aug. 26, 2022, “the voices in his head were telling him, ‘Hey — you didn’t do anything wrong,’” his defense attorney said. ”’Just keep going. Keep going.’”

So Sherwood did.

He ran a red light at Graham Boulevard and William Penn Highway and struck a minibike driven by Luis Hernandez, killing him.

Sherwood, who suffers from mental illness, kept driving.

Police broke off the chase to try to help Hernandez. And when officers spotted the Wilkinsburg man two hours later near his home, Sherwood took off once more, trying to hit an officer as police approached.

The officer shot Sherwood in the arm. Police eventually took him into custody after chasing Sherwood through Wilkinsburg, Pittsburgh’s East Hills and Homewood.

On Tuesday, there was nowhere else to run.

A judge ordered Sherwood, 50, to serve 17 to 34 years in state prison following the defendant’s guilty plea in November to homicide by vehicle and aggravated assault on an officer in November.

“It’s obvious the damage this has caused the victim’s family,” said Allegheny County Assistant District Attorney Grant Olson. “In an instant, a family loses a father, their brother, their son.”

He called Sherwood’s actions “selfish and senseless.”

Olson presented one witness in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court and two victim impact statements.

The victim’s aunt, Evelyn Hernandez, said her nephew was more like a little brother. He was one of just a few male figures in their family, and they relied on him.

“We lost our whole world when he was just coming home from work,” she said.

Hernandez, 38, was a single father with three children ages 10 to 15 at the time of the crash, according to his obituary.

His mother, Nilda Roque, said in a letter to the court that his death has crushed her. She is now caring for his children, whose mother died previously.

“The children cried and missed him every day, after school, dinner time, homework time, basketball time, all the time,” she wrote.

In addition to the homicide and aggravated assault counts, Sherwood pleaded guilty to fleeing, causing an accident involving death while not licensed, DUI, reckless driving and a slew of traffic charges.

As part of the plea deal in the aggravated assault case, Sherwood agreed to a 10- to 20-year prison term, but there was no agreement on the sentence for Hernandez’s death. The homicide by vehicle carried a sentence of 7 to 14 years in prison.

Defense attorney Patrick Nightingale asked that the two sentences run at the same time rather than one after the other.

“We must take into consideration the circumstances,” he said. “Had Mr. Sherwood been taking his medication, would any of this have happened? No, I don’t think it would have.”

Nightingale said that his client has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

According to a court filing, Sherwood began hearing voices about six years ago. He reported being first diagnosed in Baltimore, where he was prescribed medication and met with a treatment team.

However, Nightingale wrote, when Sherwood returned to Pittsburgh, he had no health insurance and disliked the side effects from his medication, which made him feel woozy or foggy. He stopped taking it.

Then, Sherwood was involuntarily committed at Forbes Hospital in Monroeville after a domestic dispute in 2021, Nightingale said, but was discharged without medication.

Since his arrest, Sherwood spent time at Torrance State Hospital and is again on medication.

“I think he fully understands if he doesn’t want to hear the voices in his head, he has to continue to consistently take his medication,” Nightingale said.

His client, he said, has remorse.

“It was as bad or as risky or as reckless as an incident like this could be,” Nightingale said. “It’s horrific. There is no excuse.”

But Judge Anthony M. Mariani said he did not believe running the sentences for both crimes at the same time was appropriate because of what he called “devastating harm” to the community from Hernandez’s death.

The judge instead ordered Sherwood to serve the sentences consecutively.

“His conduct,” Mariani said, “was ‘to hell to everybody around him, including himself.’”