A Baton Rouge woman who caused a deadly crash while she was high on crack cocaine pleaded guilty Wednesday to negligent homicide and first-degree vehicular negligence causing injuries, according to 19th Judicial District Court records.
Linda Chase, 68, was behind the wheel of a Hyundai Elantra when she lost consciousness and veered across the barriers separating lanes of traffic along Florida Boulevard early the morning of May 11, 2017, police said.
Her car slammed head-on into a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction. Toxicology reports showed Chase had crack cocaine in her system at the time, and Baton Rouge police determined the drug caused her to nod off behind the wheel, according to court records.
Richard Manchester, 56, a passenger in the front seat of Chase’s car, had to be extracted from the vehicle and later died at a hospital. Police said Chase and two people in the second vehicle involved in the collision had to be rushed to a hospital with serious injuries that included multiple bone fractures.
Chase entered her plea Wednesday during a motion hearing inside the 19th JDC Courthouse, court records show. She was indicted on charges of vehicular homicide and two counts of vehicular negligence causing injuries. Prosecutors agreed to reduce the vehicular homicide indictment to negligent homicide and dismissed one of the other charges to secure Chase’s guilty plea. She faces up to 5½ years in prison when District Judge Tarvald Smith sentences her May 24.
According to police, the crash happened just before 12:30 a.m. in the 6100 block of Florida Boulevard near the Ardenwood Drive intersection.
Traffic homicide detectives determined Chase was traveling westbound in the inside lane when she lost consciousness, drifted across several lanes and her vehicle jumped the cement curb dividing the east- and westbound lanes.
The Elantra crashed into a light pole while riding the barrier, then drifted into the eastbound lanes and struck an oncoming car, police determined.
Investigators questioned Chase at her apartment six days after the crash, and she told them she and Manchester were traveling to a bank to withdraw cash so they could go to a casino. She said she had no recollection of the crash, but admitted that the two were at a party earlier that night where several people were smoking crack cocaine. Chase denied using the drug herself.
“I don’t smoke,” she told officers, according to investigative reports contained in court records. “But the room was clouded up, so I guess I got it in my system.”
Toxicology results from blood samples drawn at the hospital the morning of the crash showed Chase ingested cocaine and ecgonine methyl ester, a derivative of the drug that forms when cocaine is smoked.