A tragic accident has led to charges being filed against a local woman, according to police. Pennsylvania authorities believe the woman was intoxicated at the wheel when an accident claimed the life of another woman. The accused now stands charged with multiple charges, including homicide by vehicle and drunk driving. A preliminary hearing will be happening soon.
According to the accident report, a couple and their young child were coming home from a Christmas celebration the evening of Nov. 17, 2017, when their vehicle was struck by another car. The force of the impact killed the child’s mother and sent both the girl and her father to local hospitals for treatment for unspecified injuries. This prompted an investigation into the other driver, though the report does not detail what occurred at the scene.
The woman was arrested on March 6 after a long investigation and now stands charged with 13 separate charges, including reckless endangerment and aggravated assault by vehicle, in addition to the charges already mentioned. If she is found guilty, she could spend years in prison. As it stands today, she paid 10 percent of her posted $25,000 bail and was released.
While the death of a young mother is certainly a tragedy, it would be no less tragic for the state of Pennsylvania to wrongly imprison someone on drunk driving charges if they were not guilty. This is why the system demands that prosecutors provide compelling evidence of her alleged intoxication, including any breath or blood tests that may have been administered, as well as an account of what happened at the scene. Given the length of time between the investigation and the woman’s arrest, there may be an opportunity for the accused woman’s defense team to find flaws in the prosecution’s case and use them to bolster their own case in her defense.
Source: Phoenixville, PA Patch, “Driver Was Drunk In Crash That Killed Chesco Mother“, Justin Heinze, March 8, 2018
