The driving conditions west of Wapiti were good, the Chevy pickup was operating normally and the driver was sober, obeying the speed limit and not on his cell phone. But for some unknown reason, shortly after noon on June 9, Manuel Defuentes’ truck drifted across the centerline of U.S. Highway 14/16/20 and plowed into a group of German motorcyclists bound for Yellowstone National Park.

Defuentes, of Oregon, says he doesn’t remember what happened and authorities say they don’t know what went wrong.

“(The) investigation revealed … no explanation whatsoever for the defendant’s truck entering the bikers’ lane of travel. Just three dead individual tourists,” said Park County Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Skoric. “So we know what happened — his truck entered their lane completely and ultimately caused just utter destruction — we just don’t know why it happened.”

Three German tourists — Tino Cachey, 53, his wife Ute Cachey, 52 and Erik Brecht, 37 — were killed in the crash. Three others — Frank Brecht, 47, Dieter Brecht, 65, and Renate Geiger, 67 — suffered life-changing injuries.

After taking several days to think the case over, Park County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Waters sentenced Defuentes to two years in jail and one year of supervised probation for three misdemeanor counts of vehicular homicide. The judge indicated he may be willing to release Defuentes after he’s served at least one year in jail.

While there’s no evidence that Defuentes intended to hurt anyone, “I cannot ignore that we have three people who are dead and of course, they’ll never be returned,” Waters said in court on Wednesday.

“This is obviously one of those cases that keeps prosecutors and defense attorneys and families and even judges awake at night, trying to figure out what is appropriate and what isn’t. Sometimes there’s an easy answer to that and sometimes there isn’t,” Waters had said at the outset of the hearing. “This is one of those cases where it may not be.”

Defuentes apologized to the families and friends of the victims, to the community and the court.

Defuentes said he’d ridden motorcycles for 50 years and has seen friends die in crashes, “but never in my wildest imagination did I ever find myself involved in one like this.”

“I close my eyes at night and I see them,” he said of the victims. “When I pray at night, they’re on my mind.”

“There’s been times where I’ve just wanted to sit in the corner and cry. I pray that they are with God — and for the families and friends,” Defuentes said. “I’m so sorry.”

Skoric had argued for a three-year jail sentence — the maximum allowed by law.

“When you’re traveling down the highway … you have an expectation that other vehicles will maintain their lane of travel; that’s the law,” Skoric said, adding later that, “these individuals simply would be alive but for the criminal negligence of this defendant.”

Defuentes, who’s been jailed since the day of the crash, asked to be released on probation.

Court-appointed defense attorney Nick Beduhn said Defuentes is a Vietnam War veteran who’s worked jobs ranging from carpenter to potato quality inspector. He said Defuentes has been a “giver,” serving as a volunteer firefighter and assisting people who are quitting drugs.

Beduhn said that, regardless of whatever sentence was handed down, it was a case with no “winner.”

“No one will be back to normal at the end of this case,” he said.

Defuentes told authorities he left his home in Ontario, Oregon, at 3 a.m., after about five hours of sleep. He’d been heading to Cody to pick up his ex-wife, the Wyoming Highway Patrol told The Associated Press. Defuentes made it roughly 550 miles without incident when — just east of the Shoshone National Forest boundary — he drifted into the westbound lane of U.S. 14/16/20, where nine Germans were approaching on six motorcycles.

Defuentes’ truck narrowly missed the first bike, carrying Bernd Weissensel and his wife.

“My wife and I, although luckily not injured at all on our bodies, we (are) both still suffering from the pictures of the scene, which we cannot get out of (our heads),” Weissensel wrote in correspondence that Skoric read in court. “I still have the eyes of Mr. Defuentes in my mind, when he looked at me a second before the crash.”

After missing the Weissensels, Defuentes’ truck sideswiped the next two bikes and hit two more head-on, while the last motorcycle hit the Chevy broadside.

Beyond the deaths of the Cacheys and Erick Brecht, doctors told Dieter Brecht and Renate Geiger they’d “broken almost everything that can be broke,” and Frank Brecht lost his foot, Weissensel wrote. The three injured bikers had to arrange medical flights back to Germany after time in ICU in Billings; they were only allowed to go home in October, Weissensel said.

In addition to the physical injuries, he said the families have been battling with depression.

“... So many sad things,” Weissensel wrote.

The Cacheys had become grandparents just a few days before they left for their trip to America.

“I will never forget how lucky and happy these two people had been,” Weissensel wrote. That the Cacheys saw their grandchild a couple times before they departed, “I think it was a sign from someone in heaven,” he said.

Wyoming Highway Patrol investigators initially suspected Defuentes might have been impaired because of pain medication he’d been taken after a surgical procedure, but a blood test showed he was sober. Defuentes cooperated with the investigation. Beduhn added that, unlike some of his other clients, Defuentes took responsibility for the crash “from day one.”

In addition to the jail time and probation, Defuentes must pay $570 in court assessments and fees. While on probation, he is prohibited from driving, among other conditions.

To be guilty of vehicular homicide, a misdemeanor that carries up to a year of jail time, a person must be proven to have caused someone’s death by driving “in a criminally negligent manner.” That’s generally when a person fails to realize their actions pose “a substantial and unjustifiable risk” and deviates from what a reasonable person would do.

To convict someone of aggravated vehicular homicide — a felony that carries up to 20 years of prison time — prosecutors must prove a person was either drunk or drove recklessly.