DWI Hit Parade!

From Tampa Bay Times
LARGO — Janet Nusspickel was driving a school bus to Northeast High School when she got the call. It was a police officer who said he needed to talk to her soon and in person.
“I knew then that something was terribly wrong … as only a mother can know,” she said in a court hearing Tuesday.
But she had a job to do. She drove to the next stop, and then got a call from her husband. He said their daughter Diana had been killed in a car crash.
Somehow, she finished her route. “I had a bus full of kids I had to get to school,” she said.
She then had to go home and tend to her 4-year-old granddaughter. “I had to tell her that Mommy had gone up to heaven.”
Nusspickel was recounting the day for Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Nancy Moate Ley, who on Tuesday sentenced the drunken driver responsible to 26 years in prison.
Earlier in the hearing, Scott Michael Nicholson pleaded guilty to two counts of DUI-manslaughter and one count of reckless driving with serious bodily injury in connection with the June 2011 crash.
Nicholson, 31, was driving …MORE

From WKMG
ORLANDO, Fla. – A woman in her 20s was struck by a vehicle and killed while trying to cross Interstate 4, leading to a multi-vehicle pileup and forcing Orlando police to close the interstate for hours.
[PHOTOS: Fatal crash closes I-4 in Orlando]
Westbound lanes of I-4 were closed at Conroy Road for about six hours before reopening around 8:40 a.m. Thursday.
According to Orlando police, the woman was involved in a crash around 2:45 a.m. and her car became disabled in the middle of I-4 near Kirkman Road.
The woman attempted to cross the interstate, but she was struck and killed, Orlando police said. Six other vehicles were then involved in a pileup, but no one was seriously injured, according to police.
Traffic was backed up for miles in the area, including on the nearby Florida Turnpike.
As police were re-routing traffic, a 20-year-old woman plowed …MORE

From Pacific Daily News
Police have arrested a suspect who is accused of causing a car crash that claimed the life of a 4-year-old girl last week.
Marco Nelson, 28, of Harmon, allegedly reached speeds of 100 mph before running a red light and striking an SUV in the tri-intersection in Barrigada. Nelson allegedly was behind the wheel of a Toyota Yaris, which ended up smashed against a concrete power pole.
The collision claimed the life of an unidentified 4-year-old girl who was in the backseat of the Yaris. Police haven’t confirmed the girl’s relation, if any, to the suspect.
Nelson was arrested on allegations of vehicular homicide while …MORE
Majesty Kolden Relech charged with killing Narinta Lee while driving drunk

Gray called 911 and said he was the victim of a hit-and-run, police said. He never asked for help for Barnett and Ortiz, a move that Assistant District Attorney Lisa Ferrick called “unconscionable.”

From Erie Times News
Marcus V. Gray’s 5-year-old daughter was not in court on Wednesday.
She was not there when her father was sentenced to four to eight years in state prison for driving drunk — he was more than three times over the legal limit — and causing an accident that killed a 24-year-old Erie man in January.
But the girl’s presence was felt throughout the proceeding.
Gray referred to his daughter as he apologized to the family of the victim, Letoinne Barnett. Gray said he dropped off his daughter at school just before the sentencing, and realized how Barnett would never have children.
Gray, crying, turned to the gallery and the approximately 30 friends and relatives of Barnett.
“I cheated a lot of people out of an experience,” Gray said.
The victim’s mother, Sandra Barnett, mentioned Gray’s daughter as she spoke of her only son.
“No more cakes, no more favorite meals, no more playing with his sister. It is all gone,” Sandra Barnett said.
“Every time you put a drink to your mouth that contains alcohol,” she said to Gray, “I want you to think of how you would feel if the next time you saw your daughter, she was gone.”
Erie County Judge Ernest J. DiSantis Jr. alluded to parenthood as he reflected on the case.
“You need to be punished for what you did,” DiSantis told Gray, 26. “You have left a void that can never be filled.
“Time can dull the pain, but time can never erase the pain of a parent who loses a child, because it is not the natural order of things.” …MORE

From Ventura County Star
Two unrelated fatal crashes were caused by drivers who were under the influence,Ventura police said Wednesday.
Toxicology tests found that Laura Stewart, 56, of Ventura, was under the influence Oct. 6 when she ran a red light at Olivas Park Drive and Victoria Avenue.
She and her husband, Henry Stewart, 53, died after their van struck two other cars near the intersection, police said.
Laura Stewart’s blood-alcohol level was 0.24 percent, three times the legal limit, police said.
Ventura police temporarily closed the intersection weeks after the crash to investigate the incident. While an initial investigation showed Laura Stewart ran the red light, authorities wanted to make sure no one else was to blame for the crash.
Ventura police also determined that a 23-year-old motorcyclist who died Oct. 9 after crashing his motorcycle was under the influence.
Jacob Karluk, of Ventura ….MORE