Inset: Vilma Elizabeth Huerta (Surry County Detention Center). Background: The Walmart where Huerta attacked several people in Mount Airy, N.C. (Google Maps).
A North Carolina woman charged with plowing her car into random people in a Walmart parking lot is heading to prison.
Earlier this month, Vilma Elizabeth Huerta, 22, pleaded guilty to three counts of felonious assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury — as well as one count of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, Surry County court records show.
Earlier this year, the judge overseeing the case rejected a plea deal.
Since then, for reasons unstated in court documents reviewed by Law&Crime, the court allowed the defendant to plead guilty.
Now, Huerta faces decades in prison.
The defendant was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years and four months and a maximum of 28 years and six months in prison, according to a plea transcript filed in the case.
The plea agreement sets a range of 73 months to 100 months in prison for each of the assault with injury counts and a range of 25 to 42 months in prison for the lesser assault count. The court ordered the sentences to run consecutively, or one after another.
The incident occurred on Dec. 3, 2023, at the Walmart Supercenter on Rockford Street in Mount Airy, a small town located roughly 40 miles northwest of Winston-Salem.
Police arrived at the big-box store just after 4 p.m. that day to find that several people had been run over, according to law enforcement sources cited by High Point-based Fox affiliate WGHP.
Investigators said the attack appeared to be intentional but that there was no prior relationship between the defendant and the victims.
In footage obtained by the TV station, the vehicle is seen driving through the Walmart parking lot before hitting a pedestrian couple visiting the Tar Heel State from Virginia.
After hitting the couple, the vehicle veers toward two teenage girls who are about to enter the store, but the teenagers roll off the car to avoid being directly hit and run over, the footage shows.
The wife of the couple from Virginia spoke with WGHP and said she and her husband were almost back to their car when they were hit. The woman went on to say the driver looked directly at the pair and accelerated to ensure she hit them.
After hitting four people, the driver left the scene. Officers caught up with the defendant later that same day and said she was not impaired. Investigators never offered a motive for the attack.
One Walmart shopper said the incident had made people in the area reconsider their safety.
"You just walk out in the middle of an aisle, and you don't even think about it, but now I will," the customer told the TV station. "That is sad."
Huerta was originally arrested on four counts of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. As a result of her plea deal, the state dropped the attempted murder charges. Prosecutors later added felony hit-and-run charges, but those charges were dismissed under the plea agreement as well.