MARIETTA - An 83-year-old woman who struck and killed 5-year-old Karla Campos while she was walking off a school bus in December 2009 was sentenced to three years in prison and 12 years probation after pleading guilty to vehicular homicide in an emotional hearing Monday.

As part of her sentence, Anderson will never be able to drive again.

Arriving in court in a wheelchair, Edith Anderson, who was 82 at the time of the crash, took the stand and told the Campos family she knows she is responsible for the death of their "beautiful little girl."

"I wanted to tell Karla's family that I know that she was a beautiful little girl who loved Dora the Explorer and chocolate," Anderson said. "And because of me, she's no longer with us, and because of me, her family will suffer the pain of her loss for the rest of their lives. And I hate that. And I'm so sorry, and I just hope the time I spend in jail will give them some measure of closure."

Karla Campos' mother, Gloria Velazquez, and her father Martin Campos, both took the stand during the hearing and through a translator said that living without their little girl has been extremely difficult.

"My life has been devastated since the death of Karla," Velazquez said through tears. "Our family has not returned to be the same as it was. Everything has changed during this year that we've been without her ... Our family tries everyday to continue living together, even though we don't have her with us anymore."

Anderson was expected to plead not guilty and the case was slated to go to trial. But on Friday afternoon, she called her attorneys and said she didn't want to put the Campos family through a trial, her attorney Corey Stern said.

Velazquez said she and her husband have two other children, a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old. The 1-year-old was born just weeks before Karla Campos' death.

The 3-year-old, she said, still asks about Karla and doesn't understand what happened to her.

"(He) asks about Karla," Velazquez said. "And to this day, even though he's undergoing therapy, he still doesn't know where she is. He keeps asking, 'when will Karla come home?' He misses Karla."

Because of Anderson's age and the fact that she didn't have a criminal record or a history of reckless driving, her defense team, Stern, Carrie Hackett and Natalie Woodward of Woodward and Stern, LLC of Roswell, asked for her sentence to be served on probation.

Anderson was charged with two counts of vehicular homicide, one count of failure to stop for a school bus and one count of reckless driving.

Assistant District Attorney Jason Marbutt, who got choked up during his closing statement, asked Superior Court Judge Adele Grubbs to sentence Anderson to 15 years, the maximum sentence for vehicular homicide, with the stipulation that she never be able to drive again.

Although Anderson's driver's license was revoked after the crash, she said she applied for a new license and received one in July 2010, to prove that she is not an incompetent driver. She said she has not driven since the December 2009 accident, except for during her driver's test.

Stern said she hasn't driven because she is "scared to death of getting back on the road."

During her testimony on Monday, when asked if she'd be willing to surrender her driver's license, Anderson replied: "Yes, if it's required."

Since the crash, Anderson said she's had "a lot of sleepless nights" and "a lot of guilt-filled days." But she did not shed any tears when recounting the details of the crash that led to Karla Campos' death.

Anderson testified that on the afternoon of Dec. 9, 2009, as she was driving on Davis Road, she approached a stopped school bus with several cars behind it, and took her foot off the accelerator to let the car slow down naturally. Then, as she got closer to the stopped car ahead of her, she went to put her foot on what she thought was the brake, and instead, hit the accelerator. When she realized she was going to hit the car in front of her, Anderson said, she turned to the right to avoid the car.

"I turned to the right and took the only opening I saw to avoid striking the car, which unfortunately was the walkway where the children were descending from the bus," Anderson said. "And unfortunately, Karla stepped down just as I passed. And after I realized my mistake, I took my foot off my accelerator and applied the brake."

Velazquez said she was just two steps away from her daughter, waiting for her to get off the bus, when she was hit by Anderson's car.

Officer James Dahlquist, the lead investigator in the case, testified Monday that Anderson traveled about 361 feet - more than the length of a football field - after she turned her car to the right and left the road to avoid hitting the school bus.

Marbutt pointed out that not only did Anderson hit the brakes too late, she never used to horn to signal that she had lost control of her car.

In her sentencing, Grubbs said that she did take Anderson's age and the fact that she had never been in trouble with the law before into account, but took issue with several things Anderson said in her testimony. Grubbs said she was concerned about the fact that Anderson confused the brake and accelerator, but said the biggest issue is that she didn't readily concede her driver's license, and that she had actually applied for and received a new one.

"I can't have that," Grubbs said to Anderson. "She needs to understand that she should never, ever drive again."

To the Campos family, Grubbs said: "I hope this will help. There is no closure, but I personally know that peace will come."