The car sped down Dempster Street going at least 70 mph. Jeanette Sliwinski drove the Ford Mustang through three red lights before coming to a final, fatal stop.
Instead of killing herself -- as authorities said she was trying to do -- Sliwinski took the lives of three musicians when her car rammed theirs July 14, 2005. Sliwinski, then 23, survived the crash with a broken ankle.
Jeanette Sliwinski was being treated for psychiatric problems when she blew three red lights in her Ford Mustang and rammed a Honda Civic.

Today, she goes on trial for murder before Judge Garritt Howard at the Cook County courthouse in Skokie.

"How do you punish somebody for being so senseless? Totally senseless," said Paul Dahlquist, father of Michael Dahlquist, one of the three victims.
"That's the part that just totally overwhelms me. What a senseless, irresponsible thing to do," he said.
Sliwinski attended Niles West High School in Skokie, had worked as a model and a stripper, and graduated from Columbia College with a degree in marketing and communications, sources said.
At the time of the crash, she had recently moved in with her parents in Morton Grove and was battling psychiatric problems. She had seen several mental health professionals in the months leading up to the crash and had an appointment to see a psychiatrist that day. She has been in the Cook County Jail for two years.

Dahlquist, 39, along with John Glick, 35, and Douglas Meis, 29, were on their lunch break when they were killed. The three worked together at Shure Inc. in Niles and played in different bands.
'You don't really need intent'
One witness said Sliwinski's Mustang became airborne after it plowed into Dahlquist's Honda Civic. The collision left both cars flipped over -- and Glick's body lying in the road.
Prosecutors as well as Sliwinski's lawyer, Tom Breen, declined to comment on the case. But with few facts in dispute, sources involved expect it to hinge on conflicting testimony from psychiatrists.
The defense -- which has five psychiatric experts lined up -- will argue that Sliwinski was insane at the time of the crash. The state is not seeking the death penalty.
Telling the story of a distraught woman whose only goal was to kill herself might not help Sliwinski, said John Decker, a professor at DePaul University College of Law.

"You really don't need intent, in the narrow sense, for murder," Decker said. "As long as the person has knowledge that there is a substantial probability that their conduct could bring about a death, that constitutes murder."
A photographer and photography collector, Paul Dahlquist honored his son's memory by donating 110 photographs to Columbia College as the Michael Dahlquist Memorial Collection.
"My way of dealing with things like this that I'm absolutely helpless to change and do anything about is just to get very busy and do work,'' he said.
Still, he said, "Once in a while, I just have a Michael time. I feel as helpless as I did the Friday morning I got the call."
Dahlquist, who lives in Oregon, said he does not plan to attend the trial. "I'd like to see it resolved in some way that she'll never forget."

WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that immigrants living in the U.S. illegally would not be covered by her proposed universal health care plan.

The New York senator said she supports basic health services for illegal immigrants, including hospitalization and treatment of acute conditions. But she said the magnitude of the nation's health care challenge means her universal coverage proposal would not cover the 12 million people living in the country illegally.

"People who are here legally deserve some better treatment and acceptance in the law than people who are not here legally," she said. "These are hard choices."

As for ways to reduce pressure on the overburdened health care system, she said she could envision using "carrots and maybe a few sticks" to motivate people to lose weight and make other behavioral changes that could help.

Speaking at a forum sponsored by several health care organizations, Clinton addressed a range of questions on the future of Social Security and Medicare, racial and gender disparities in health care coverage and ways to encourage medical students to become primary care doctors rather than specialists.

Most of all, there were questions about her proposed $110 billion health care plan and how it would bring order to a fractured system.

She didn't directly address questions of whether smokers or obese people should pay more for health care but said as president she would use the "bully pulpit" to encourage healthy lifestyle choices, particularly among young people.

Clinton, who has publicly fretted about her weight, drew laughs as she recalled competing for presidential physical fitness awards as a child.

"We were rounded up and taken to the gym where we had to jump and run. I was horrible at it. They kept telling me to run and I'd say, 'I'm running,'" she said. "It was a very strong message to children that the president cares about your health care. I personally believed Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy were sitting in the White House signing my certificate."

The former first lady also spoke about her failure to enact universal coverage during her husband's presidency, assuring audience members that she would not repeat the mistakes that doomed that effort.

Among other things, she said it had been a mistake to try to draft the plan out of the White House, and that as president she had no intention of producing the specific legislation for Congress to consider.

"I'm setting goals for the country. But I know how important it is to work out the details in consultation with the Congress," she said.

Clinton scoffed at suggestions from Republican presidential rivals that her plan is little more than socialized medicine, calling them "old, tired accusations."

The Republican National Committee said her "government-run health care plan" would be paid for through hire taxes on hardworking people.

"Senator Clinton encourages people to lead healthy lifestyles, which will occur as they run from her plan to socialize medicine, just as they did in 1993," RNC spokesman Danny Diaz said.

Clinton acknowledged the need to bring a broad spectrum of interests together in order to enact her proposed plan

"I think we'll have a very strong coalition that will be able to make the case to Congress," she said. "Nobody will come out of this process with 100 percent of what he or she wants."

Clinton also said the task would be made easier if more Democrats were elected to the Senate in 2008.

"It's one of my highest priorities," she said.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - It might just be Britney Spears' latest hit.

Hours after losing visitation rights with her two young sons, the struggling pop star apparently ran over the foot of a photographer for celebrity Web site TMZ.com. Spears was driving away from a Beverly Hills medical building, her car surrounded by photographers, when the incident occurred about 5 p.m. Thursday.

Messages left with her attorney weren't immediately returned.

Video posted on the Hollywood.TV Web site shows elements of the incident but not the tire rolling over the cameraman's foot.

The video shows Spears beginning to pull out of the structure when her car is surrounded by more than a dozen photographers. The car comes to a stop.

Spears honks and the car lurches forward a few feet. Shouting is heard, and the camera jerks around as fellow photographers appear to help a man up.

Spears drives off and seconds later video shows what appears to be a tire mark on the photographer's sock. The man, wearing sandals with white socks, doesn't respond to questions from the others as he walks away, apparently unhurt.

TMZ producer Gillian Sheldon confirmed Friday that the photographer was employed by the Web site. She said there were no plans to file a police report. In a statement released by TMZ, the photographer indicated he wasn't angry.

'Things happen at certain times and she was just a little impatient,' said the man, whose name wasn't released. 'She got a little impatient for whatever reason. I say let bygones be bygones.'

Earlier Thursday, Spears, 25, learned she can no longer visit her two preschool-age sons, who are in the custody of ex-husband Kevin Federline, until she complies with an order from Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon.

Gordon's ruling didn't spell out what directives Spears had defied, but a hearing was scheduled for Oct. 26.

Previously, though, Gordon has ordered Spears to undergo random drug and alcohol testing twice a week and to meet weekly with a 'parenting coach.'

Spears faces charges of hit and run and driving without a valid license as the result of an Aug. 6 parking lot mishap.

In that incident, paparazzi photographed Spears steering her car into another vehicle as she tried to park in a space in a Studio City lot. The video showed her walking away after assessing the damage to her own car.

© 2007 The Associated Press