Berlin Township, Mich. (DDN) – A woman from Michigan was found guilty of second-degree murder on Thursday after crashing into a boat club last year during a “kid’s dream birthday.” This tragic incident resulted in the deaths of a 4-year-old boy and his 8-year-old sister. It was a unique DUI case, with prosecutors presenting video footage from the driver’s home showing her binge drinking and staggering as part of the evidence.
“I can’t think of an instance where something like that has occurred,” Assistant Monroe County Prosecutor Jeff Yorkey told the Detroit Free Press after Marshella Chidester was convicted Thursday, in reference to the use of security footage.
Jurors took only 90 minutes to reach a guilty verdict after a four-day trial this week. They watched security footage from the day of the crash, showing the 67-year-old drinking wine and stumbling around her Newport home, located about 30 miles south of Motor City.
“I had not seen that video at all,” Brian Phillip, father of the two victims, Alanah and Zayn Phillips, told the Detroit Free Press. “I seen her in the house walking and seeing how she was still staggering, it was haunting to see. My kids were still alive at that point … if she would have just stopped, my kids would still be alive.”
Prosecutors say that Chidester had a bunch of small, single-serving wine bottles that day and also stopped by a local bar. Security footage from her home shows her having a drink at about 2:32 p.m. A local store clerk testified that she was at the store around 9 a.m., buying a four-pack of single-serving pinot grigio and a regular-sized bottle of red wine.
“She took my grandbabies from us,” said Alanah and Zayn’s grandmother Kathy Phillips at a hearing last year. “She made that choice to go in that car, and she chose to drink and drive.”
Just two days after what happened, the kids’ mom, Maria Dodds, decided to file a lawsuit against the owner of the local bar that Chidester went to. She claims they were negligent for serving Chidester when she was clearly drunk. The suit claimed that the bar should have cut off Chidester’s drinks and provided her with another way to get home.
Besides murder, Chidester was convicted of driving under the influence, which led to a death, and he also faced five charges for driving while intoxicated that resulted in serious injuries. She has been ordered to stay in custody until her sentencing on May 15.
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