Young hit-run witnesses ask for & get justice Drunk driver who killed 12-year-old gets 4-8 years By Theresa Conroy conroyt@phillynews.com 215-568-8278 It's the little kids who tear your heart out: • The red-faced, red-haired 13-year-old girl who witnessed her cousin getting run down by a drunk driver on Thanksgiving Day 2004. The sincere, sweet-voiced girl stood nervously before a judge, demanding harsh penalties for intoxicated adults who get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. • And there was also the 10-year-old angel who could barely spit the words out between throat-stinging sobs about that same hit-and-run that killed her friend, 12-year-old Peter Roberto, who was struck on Harbison Avenue by a drunken William Halloran. Parents wondered and worried out loud yesterday over how to explain the tragedy to these innocent children. One mom - Peter's aunt and the mother of the child who witnessed his death - said she feared the accident would haunt her daughter for the rest of her life. "She wakes up crying," Suzanne Gerhardt said of the 13-year-old, Kelsey Ryan. "She fights with bouts of depression." Her daughter's nightmare, Gerhardt said, is not merely the result of seeing her cousin struck and killed, but from having to return to the scene abandoned by Halloran to retell the awful tale to investigators. Then the child had to relive it all again in March in front of a jury. That jury convicted Halloran of vehicular homicide while driving under the influence, involuntary manslaughter and leaving the scene of the accident. But the kids were brought back to court yet again yesterday, reopening those same wounds in front of a packed courtroom, reliving the horrors in front of the man who caused them, purging their hearts in an effort to get Halloran sent to jail for a good, long time. After hearing the heart-wrenching victim-impact testimony from children and adults from the Roberto family, and listening to equally emotional pleas from Halloran's relatives, Common Pleas Judge Teresa Sarmina sentenced Halloran to 4-8 years in prison. When it was his turn to speak, Halloran, a 30-year-old father from Mayfair, appeared grief-stricken. He cried and apologized, then admitted to an emotion rarely expressed by defendants: fear. "The truth is, I'm scared. I'm confused. I'm deeply saddened by this. I don't know what to do," he said. "I hope one day God can touch your heart and ease your pain," he said to the Roberto family. "And maybe you can forgive me, because I can't forgive myself." Peter was killed while walking to a WaWa on Thanksgiving night. He crossed Harbison Avenue near Comly Street, against a red light. Halloran first swerved to avoid Peter, but then struck the boy with a borrowed SUV. After the accident, Halloran turned to look at Peter, then walked away. He turned himself in to police hours later.