Driver Charged after Wife Dies in Car Accident
On behalf of Brown & Crouppen, P.C. posted in Motor Vehicle Accident on Friday, January 21, 2011
Authorities have arrested and charged a Clubb, Missouri man in the death of his wife following a single-vehicle car accident last fall. The man also faces felony drug charges after police found crack cocaine and a glass crack pipe in the man’s possession after the accident.
According to an article in the Southeast Missourian, the accident took place on September 12. The man, 27, and his wife, 48, were driving north on U.S. 67. Around two and a half miles north of Greenville, the couple’s Daewoo veered off the road. The man told police that he had swerved to avoid a deer in the road. The car ran into a culvert and some trees, according to a Missouri State Highway Patrol investigation. The accident killed the man’s wife.
When a trooper arrived at the scene, he observed the man having trouble keeping his balance and mumbling when he spoke. Although the man did not smell like alcohol, the trooper had the man perform field sobriety tests. Based on the tests, the trooper concluded that the man was under the influence of drugs and arrested him. The 27-year-old told the man that he had taken prescription drugs that day.
During an interrogation conducted by another trooper, the man allegedly admitted purchasing crack cocaine that evening and smoking some of it, along with marijuana. He said he had also taken Zoloft and Hydrocodone. While searching the man, troopers allegedly found a glass pipe used to smoke crack cocaine, as well as a small rock of crack.
The man is charged with felony first-degree involuntary manslaughter as well as felony possession of a controlled substance. He also had a bench warrant against him for failing to appear for an unrelated marijuana possession charge, which police also executed.
Source: the Southeast Missourian, “Man charged in wife’s car accident death,” January 6, 2011