The story of a 58-year-old retired accountant whose constant consumption of alcohol would ultimately consume her better judgment is one that should strike terror in Alaskans. We like to believe if we're good drivers, we're safe on the road. But the truth is, when drunks get behind the wheel, everyone's a target.
Louis Clement likely had no idea that someone else's disease would be his undoing. On the road for a drive with his fiance, Joyua Stovall, he and his beloved had the misfortune of colliding head on with Lori Phillips' unquenchable thirst for booze. Phillips was on her way home from a hair appointment. A hair dresser at the salon, recognizing Phillips was in bad shape, tried but failed to stop her. Worried, she called 911.
The crash that claimed Clement's life and badly injured Stovall happened just 10 miles from the salon. It wasn't the first time Phillips had been busted for driving drunk. But this was the first time it cost someone their life. On Friday, Judge Philip Volland, unimpressed with the woman who was before him in court on a third DUI and carrying a long trail of pain behind her, sentenced Phillips to 20 years behind bars.
"'It is literally true that Ms. Phillips' driving, swerving two lanes over, in the dark, at oncoming cars put hundreds of others at risk,' Volland said. 'And not only drunk, but as drunk as you can get without being dead,'" quoted the Anchorage Daily News. Read much more here.