PRESTON, Minn. — The father of two children who were killed when Samantha Jo Petersen slammed the SUV she was driving into the buggy they were in says he thought he did enough to keep his children safe.

He personally trained one of the gentlest ponies he could find and installed a slow-moving vehicle sign and reflective pole on the vehicle.

“I had not considered other people and their decision-making,” he said in a written statement to Fillmore County District Court as Judge Jeremy Clinefelter weighed the punishment for Petersen.

Clinefelter sentenced Petersen to four years in prison for her conviction of criminal vehicular homicide. The term will be served concurrently with a 23-month sentence for another count of criminal vehicular operation.

Petersen, 37 and formerly of Kellogg, ple

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