The trial didn’t begin as scheduled for a 26-year-old Oak Harbor man accused of driving at twice the legal blood-alcohol limit and causing a pickup accident that killed his friend a year ago.

Instead, Robert Whelchel pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide in an emotional hearing at Island County Superior Court Nov. 14.

Prosecutor Greg Banks and Whelchel’s attorney, Jill Bernstein of Bellingham, worked out a plea deal under which Whelchel will spend three years in prison, if the judge agrees.

If he had gone to trial, Whelchel could have faced more than five years in prison if found guilty.

Under the plea bargain, Banks crossed out the part of the vehicular homicide charge that concerns alcohol use, which has a higher standard sentencing range and would have added a mandatory two years on top of that sentence.

Although the plea bargain knocks the standard range below three years, Banks said he will ask for an exceptional sentence of the full three years in prison. Whelchel has agreed to the sentence.

Banks did not return a call for comment.

The sentencing hearing is set for Jan. 10, but Judge Vickie Churchill allowed family members of the victim, 21-year-old Christopher Kadrlik, to speak last Tuesday. She noted that they had traveled a long way, expecting a trial.

Banks first read a heartbreaking statement from the mother of Kadrlik’s three-year-old daughter, Olivia.

“Olivia will never get the chance to know her father,” she wrote.

The woman described how the toddler doesn’t understand that her father is dead and still talks to him as if he’s in the room. Kadrlik, a sailor at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, received a military funeral.

“I didn’t want my daughter to have a flag,” she wrote. “I wanted her to have a father.”

Kadrlik’s mother, Patricia, spoke at the hearing. She said her son touched so many people’s lives and she will miss their daily phone conversations.

“This was a senseless, selfish act that has caused tremendous amounts of loss and pain,” she said.

April Holmes also spoke, saying that her son — Kadrlik’s nephew — misses him dearly and keeps asking where he is. She asked the judge to give Whelchel the maximum sentence.

According to the State Patrol, four Navy men, all Oak Harbor residents, were on their way back home from a party when the accident occurred in the early morning of Nov. 12, 2005.

Whelchel was driving a Ford F-250 pickup east on Dugualla Road when he lost control and the truck rolled onto its top in a field, the State Patrol reported.

The two men in the back, Kadrlik and 20-year-old William Chitwood, were thrown from the pickup. The truck rolled over Kadrlik and killed him. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Whelchel, Chitwood and the third passenger, 23-year-old Michael Lavanway, sustained minor injuries and were taken to Whidbey General Hospital in ambulances for treatment.

A detective with the State Patrol determined that speed, as well as alcohol, appeared to be factors in the cause of the accident.

An analysis of a blood sample taken from Whelchel after the accident showed that his blood-alcohol level was 0.17, or more than twice the legal limit, court documents state.

Kadrlik was an AME airman, or an aviation structural mechanic, safety equipment, with VAQ-129. He was originally from Northfield, Minn.

Whelchel was also an aviation structural mechanic, but with VAQ-142.

You can reach Jessie Stensland at jstensland@whidbeynews

times.com or 675-6611.