Man who drove Jeep into restaurant, killing 2 family members sentenced to 46-56 years

GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — A judge on Friday sentenced a Gaston County man to decades behind bars for killing two family members.

The sentencing hearing for Roger Self, who drove his Jeep into a Bessemer City restaurant, killing his daughter and daughter-in-law in May 2018, started on Tuesday and ended on Friday when the judge sentenced him to 46-56 years in prison.

The 65-year-old addressed the court after being handed his sentence, saying, “There is no way to describe the pain I have been in. I’m going to die in prison, but I’ll be free because of Christ.”

Several people in the courtroom stood up and walked out rather than hear Self speak.

>> Reporter Ken Lemon is in the courtroom and will have more on this developing story on Channel 9.

Earlier this year, Self took a plea deal in the 2018 crash. He pleaded guilty on two second-degree murder charges.

Self was at the Surf and Turf Lodge on North 14th Street with his family for dinner after church when he walked outside, got in his SUV, and plowed the Jeep into the restaurant where his family was sitting.

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Roger Self’s daughter, Katelyn Self, and daughter-in-law, Amanda Self, were killed in the incident.

“I didn’t mean to hurt them,” Roger Self said in court after accepting the guilty pleas. He said he was troubled by mental health issues at the time.

Self’s son, Josh Self, was the first to testify against him on Tuesday. He said his sister asked why their dad left the table before he drove into the restaurant.

“I turned to look out the window to see what she was referring to. That’s the last I remember of that day,” he said.

Josh Self was seriously hurt in the crash. Tashia Witherspoon, an EMT who responded that day, told the courtroom he was covered in debris.

“I realized that somebody was trying to come up from underneath the car,” Witherspoon said. “It was terrible.”

Katelyn Self was a sheriff’s deputy. She died at the scene. Amanda Self was a nurse. She was seriously hurt and taken to the hospital where she worked. She later died from her injuries.

Witherspoon said the hospital staff was ready to handle several wounded patients, but they weren’t ready to see a coworker.

“Several people had collapsed when they saw who it was,” she said.

Officer Greg Goins with the Bessemer City Police Department said Roger Self’s eyes were hollow after the crash.

“He said, ‘I do it on purpose.’”

Goins testified that he uncuffed Self so he could sign documents for paramedics.

“As soon as I got the handcuffs off, he reached for my firearm,” Goins said.

A detective who questioned Self said he knew he killed his daughter, but he didn’t ask about any of the other victims.

In a recording of that interview, Self talked like he was possessed.

″I was overtaken by whatever came inside me,” he said.

He said the feeling took over when he was eating with his family.

“Something that was totally out of my control,” he said. “I had no control whatsoever.”

Josh Self said that his dad seemed depressed and “didn’t seem to find any joy in life” in the weeks prior to the killings.

Self’s attorney was trying to get the judge to see that Roger Self was a loving father and grandfather until his struggle with mental illness, and that is the reason that he did the unthinkable.

On Wednesday, the judge heard from a forensic psychiatrist who evaluated Roger Self while he was awaiting trial.

Dr. George Corvin said Roger Self, who is a man of faith, believed that God no longer favored him and he began to see the world as corrupt.

Corvin said Roger Self was a family man and a successful businessman who was severely depressed, but doctors around the time of the incident didn’t give him targeted medication.

“They tried to treat it with more antidepressants, which was just throwing fuel on the fire,” Corvin said.

He said Roger Self threw out his medication and lost touch with reality. He said Roger Self believed taking pride in good deeds was a horrible sin.

Corvin told the judge it got worse when Roger Self said he and a friend took several trips out of town to massage parlors and strip clubs. He said this triggered enormous amounts of guilt and Roger Self felt like there was no escape from God’s wrath.

“When you begin to believe that it’s so bad, that you are so evil that God wants nothing to do with you,” Corvin said. “All of those things are huge risk factors for precipitating what in his case was quite clearly a seriously dangerous psychotic crisis.”

Corvin said Roger Self admitted that he considered suicide the night before the May 2018 incident to “escape a doomed world,” but that wouldn’t save his family.

On Thursday, witnesses testified that Roger Self had an extraordinary impact on their lives as a church youth leader.

His daughter, Taylor Self Potter, also testified. She was with the family at the restaurant when the crash happened, but was not injured.

Potter said her father “was the best man that I know. The first man that I ever loved.”

Self’s wife, Diane, who was critically wounded during the crash, also testified on her husband’s behalf.

She said her heart breaks for him because “he would never hurt us.”

Roger Self took the stand on Thursday as well. He said he was struggling with fidelity, which led to depression. He told the judge that months before the crash, he went to the hospital because he felt like he was having a nervous breakdown.

“I wished I had the answer but I can promise you sir, I have never ever hurt anyone,” he said.

Prosecutors argued that Roger Self wasn’t grief stricken following the crash.

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