Friday marked the anniversary of a Halloween bus crash on Oct. 31, 2022, in which two passengers were killed and another severely injured.

And next week, the driver involved is scheduled to be released from prison, records show.

On that Halloween afternoon in 2022, a Central District 301 school bus, with 24 children aboard from Lily Lake Elementary School, had just stopped at 3:45 p.m. on Empire Road near Kingswood Drive in Campton Township to drop off a student.

Tyler A. Schmidt of South Elgin was 19 when he drove a 2013 Lexus SUV east on Empire Road and crashed into the rear of the school bus, killing two passengers in the Lexus, Campton Hills siblings Grace, 20, and Emil Diewald, 19, according to police reports and court records.

Grace was in the front passenger seat; Emil was seated behind her. The third passenger, 17-year-old Kiley Cox of South Elgin, seated behind Schmidt, was severely injured, records show.

No one on the bus was injured.

Schmidt, now 21, pleaded guilty in February to reckless homicide and aggravated reckless driving. In April, Kane County Judge David Kliment sentenced Schmidt to 4½ years in prison. He received credit for 827 days he already served, both during electronic monitoring and while physically in jail, records show.

According to the Illinois Department of Corrections website, Schmidt will be released Nov. 5 from Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill. His release will be followed by six months of court supervision. Court records show Schmidt paid $1,831 in a fine and court costs.

While records show the criminal aspect of the crash is nearly over, a civil lawsuit against him is still pending.

Two lawsuits – a wrongful death by the siblings’ mother, Wendy Diewald, and by the surviving passenger Kiley Cox – were combined into one. The next court date in that case is Nov. 13, records show.

At Schmidt’s sentencing hearing, Kiley’s mother and sister, Sandra and Shaye Cox, both read impact statements about her devastating injuries and suffering, which included severe head trauma, a broken jaw, bruised liver and collapsed lung.

In her current state, Kiley suffers memory loss, her mother had said in court.

“Every day is a struggle. ... Kiley has no memory of the past, present,” Sandra Cox had said in court. “Today she wakes up and says she feels dead and broken inside.”

The civil filing also named Central District 301, asserting that the school bus stop was in a dangerous place with inadequate warnings that a bus stop existed, according to court documents.

On Wednesday, Kane County Judge Susan Clancy Boles upheld the school district’s motion to dismiss the portions in which it is named, though the plaintiffs can appeal the ruling.

Previously, the court dismissed a similar claim against the Kane County Department of Transportation.