Three guilty in separate drunken-driving deaths

The guilt of three drunken drivers involved in separate fatal accidents was decided Thursday, one by a jury that deliberated just 10 minutes after a two-day trial.

Arturo Andrade Garcia had claimed he wasn't the driver of the car that had been traveling more than 60 mph in a 25 mph zone on Bassler Street when it ran a stop sign and slammed into a car traveling along Carey Avenue.

The passenger in the second car, Diane Glass, was killed and the driver, Robert Hawkins, broke an arm.

Garcia fled the scene on foot, but was arrested a few blocks away as he walked through a department store parking lot. The car belonged to his sister and the keys were in his pocket, along with bits of glass from the shattered windshield.

At jail, he maintained his innocence but asked, "Who did I hit," according to testimony in District Judge Kathy Hardcastle's courtroom. Garcia's blood-alcohol level was 0.24 percent, more than twice what is required to prove drunken driving.

The jury convicted Garcia of two counts each of felony drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident. He could be sent to prison for more than 70 years when he is sentence April 26.

In a second case, Michael Chrisman pleaded guilty to a single count of felony drunken driving for running through a stop sign on Desert Inn Road and hitting the side of a car traveling along Fort Apache Road on June 26.

Tina Rose died in the collision and her husband, John Rose, suffered head injuries that left him in a coma for nearly two weeks.

Chrisman's blood-alcohol level was 0.20 percent.

Deputy District Attorney Gary Booker said that as a result of the plea bargain, Chrisman will face a maximum of six to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced by District Judge Sally Loehrer on Aug. 17.

In the third case, Miguel Angel Duran pleaded guilty to felony drunken driving for being the driver in a single-vehicle rollover accident on Jan. 17 that claimed the life of one of his best friends and seriously injured another.

His blood-alcohol level was 0.20 percent and cocaine also was detected in his system, Booker said.

Duran, who went to court in a wheelchair because of back and pelvis injuries he suffered, was traveling along I-15 to Las Vegas from Phoenix when the truck rolled over about five miles north of Primm, ejecting the occupants.

archive