Corvette driver sentenced to 47 years for DUI crash that killed Ormond-by-the-Sea couple on A1A

A Volusia County judge on Wednesday, Oct. 7, sentenced Scott P. March to 47 years in state prison for the November 2025 crash on State Road A1A in Ormond-by-the-Sea that killed Thomas and Julia Ann Lauck, a retired couple who split their time between Ohio and the Ormond Beach area. Prosecutors said March was drunk and driving a newly purchased Chevrolet Corvette at triple-digit speeds when he tried to pass the couple's Jeep Wrangler in a no-passing zone.

Circuit Judge A. Christian Miller imposed the sentence after March entered an open plea of no contest to two counts of vehicular homicide and two counts of DUI manslaughter, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal and FOX 35 Orlando. Because the plea came with no agreement from prosecutors, the length of the sentence was left to the judge. Assistant State Attorney Ashley Terwilleger had asked for 47 years. March's defense attorney, John Terhune, asked for 15.

March, reported as 63 or 64 at sentencing, received credit for roughly a year already spent in the Volusia County jail. He has 30 days to file an appeal, WKMG News 6 reported.

How the sentence adds up

Judge Miller structured the punishment as two blocks of time served back to back. According to WKMG, he sentenced March to 23.7 years on counts one and two, with credit for time served, and another 23.7 years on counts three and four, to run consecutively. That totals a little more than 47 years.

The 23.7-year figure is not arbitrary. It is the minimum prison term called for by Florida's sentencing guidelines in the case, according to a defense motion described by the News-Journal. Prosecutors had offered March a plea deal at roughly that length after consulting with the Lauck family, the newspaper reported, but March rejected it and chose to leave the decision to the judge. FOX 35 reported that Miller declined to go below the guidelines minimum.

Each of the four charges is a second-degree felony in Florida, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Stacked to the maximum, the four counts could have produced 60 years. In announcing the sentence, Miller cited the "egregiousness" of March's conduct and his "callousness" afterward, FOX 35 reported.

The crash on A1A

The crash happened around 6 p.m. on Nov. 1, 2025, on State Road A1A near Sandpiper Ridge Drive in Ormond-by-the-Sea, an unincorporated beachside community north of Ormond Beach, near Lagerheads Bar and Grill. The posted speed limit on that stretch is 45 mph.

The Florida Highway Patrol said at the time that March was trying to pass the Laucks' Jeep in a no-passing zone. FHP said data showed the Corvette at 147 mph about 5.5 seconds before the crash, that March began braking only about 1.5 seconds before impact and that he was still going about 110 mph when he struck the back of the Jeep. At the sentencing hearing, investigators testified that the car's data recorded 137 mph eight seconds before impact, with the accelerator pressed 100 percent, and an impact speed of 114 mph, WKMG reported.

The Jeep overturned and both occupants were thrown from it. Thomas Lauck, 72, who was driving, died at the scene. Julia Ann Lauck, 73, suffered a fractured arm, broken ribs and the amputation of her left leg, according to WFTV, and died at a hospital on Nov. 6.

March had bought the 2026 Corvette that same day for more than $170,000, the News-Journal reported. A witness testified that at the scene March said he would have to buy another car the next day, according to the newspaper, and FOX 35 reported that witnesses said he seemed more concerned about his car than about the victims.

Blood alcohol results and added charges

March was first charged with two counts of vehicular homicide and was ordered held without bail at the Volusia County Branch Jail after a hearing in November 2025. On Dec. 18, Terwilleger added two counts of DUI manslaughter after blood test results came back.

Two tests showed March's blood alcohol concentration at 0.134 and 0.133, according to Haley Harrison, a spokeswoman for the 7th Circuit State Attorney's Office, as reported by the News-Journal. One result came from medical records and the other from a Florida Department of Law Enforcement test. Florida's legal limit for drivers is 0.08.

At the November bail hearing, Terwilleger told the court that March had been convicted of driving under the influence in California in 2018, according to the News-Journal. Prosecutors also pointed to a separate arrest two days after the crash, when Daytona Beach police said they found March on a yacht and charged him with loitering and prowling. Prosecutors cited that arrest as another reason he should remain jailed without bond.

Case timeline

The case moved from crash to sentencing in a little over 11 months.

The family's words in court

Relatives of the Laucks asked Miller for the maximum. The couple's niece, Missy Cole, told the court the two were "ripped from our lives," FOX 35 reported. Cole and the couple's son, Zach Osborne, said the family never got to say goodbye and that the Laucks' grandchildren would never see them again, according to the News-Journal. Family members described Julia Lauck spending her final days in pain in a hospital bed, knowing her husband was dead and that she had lost a leg.

A relative told the court the family hoped to find some peace knowing the person responsible would spend the rest of his life in prison, WKMG reported.

March spoke before the sentence was imposed. He apologized, said he was remorseful and asked for leniency, citing health problems and personal struggles that included open-heart surgery and a divorce filing in 2025, according to WKMG and the News-Journal.

Prosecutors' message on impaired driving

State Attorney R.J. Larizza, whose 7th Judicial Circuit covers Volusia, Flagler, Putnam and St. Johns counties, said after the hearing that the 47-year term "cannot bring them back," but that it sends a message to drunk drivers, FOX 35 reported.

Under Florida law, DUI manslaughter carries a mandatory minimum of four years in prison, and vehicular homicide is charged when a driver kills someone by operating a vehicle in a reckless manner likely to cause death or great bodily harm. Prosecutors pursued both theories in this case, which allowed the court to stack sentences on separate counts for each victim.

What's next

March has 30 days from the Oct. 7 sentencing to file a notice of appeal. Because he entered an open plea rather than going to trial, the issues available to him on appeal are narrower than after a jury verdict and generally center on the sentence itself and the plea process. He will be transferred from the Volusia County jail to the Florida Department of Corrections to begin serving the term. With credit for about a year already served, and with Florida requiring inmates to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences, March would be past 100 years old before becoming eligible for release under the sentence as imposed.

The status of the separate Daytona Beach loitering and prowling case was not addressed in reports from the sentencing hearing.