Vehicular Manslaughter Zoloft 28/04/2009 Tennessee Woman Kills One and Injures One With her Car
Summary:
Second paragraph reads: "Dolly Cox, 46, admitted that she had been drinking and had taken the anti-depressant Zoloft before her car struck and killed Janeal Williams and critically injured Eddie Rone as they sat on their parked motorcycles."
Dolly Cox pleads guilty in drunken-driving accident that killed firefighter
By Lawrence Buser ( Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal
Monday, April 27, 2009
A Memphis woman pleaded guilty Monday to charges that she killed an off-duty firefighter and injured another in a drunken-driving crash in 2007.
Dolly Cox, 46, admitted that she had been drinking and had taken the anti-depressant Zoloft before her car struck and killed Janeal Williams and critically injured Eddie Rone as they sat on their parked motorcycles.
Cox, whose blood-alcohol content was .17, pleaded guilty in Criminal Court to reckless vehicular homicide and aggravated assault as an especially mitigated offender because of her absence of a prior record.
She was sentenced to 7.2 years on the homicide charge and 1.8 years on the assault, but will ask Judge James Lammey Jr. for probation at a hearing set for May 28.
State prosecutor Brooks Yelverton said the crash occurred about 10:30 p.m. on Nov. 18, 2007, as Cox was headed eastbound on I-240 and swerved into the emergency lane just east of the Millbranch exit.
Her 2002 Ford Mustang struck Williams and Rone, both 35, as they were waiting for assistance because one of their motorcycles had developed problems.
"This could happen to anybody who drinks and drives," said her attorney, Ted Hansom. "She obviously regrets very much what's happened."
A civil suit filed by Williams' family is pending in Circuit Court.