(July 22, 2008)—More testimony is expected Wednesday before jurors began deliberations on punishment for Douglas Howard Church of West who pleaded guilty Monday to intoxication manslaughter and three counts of intoxication assault in a 2006 accident that killed a young mother and injured her three children.
Church was indicted in September 2007 for intoxication manslaughter and three counts of intoxication assault in connection with the head-on collision on Aug. 11, 2006 on Tours Road north of Waco that killed Debbie French and seriously injured her three young children.
French died when a truck driven by Church veered into her lane and struck the truck in which she and her children were riding head on.
A paramedic who testified about the accident Tuesday said,” This is the worst call I’ve ever been on.”
Jurors watched dash-cam video from the patrol car of a state trooper who responded to the accident that showed the trooper talking to Church about the crash.
When the trooper asked Church if he had been drinking, he first answered, “No.”
But later he admitted to drinking beer.
As the two talked, a 5-year-old who was trapped in the smashed red pickup truck could be heard screaming in the background.
Debbie French’s now 11-year-old son, who survived the accident, later testified about how he tried to wake his mother up after the head-on crash.
As the boy testified, Church was visibly distraught.
He could be seen crying as French's son stepped down from the witness chair.
Douglas Church's brother Robert died in 2000 in a one-vehicle accident at the age of 20 after a night of Labor Day weekend beer drinking.
He was found dead in his pickup, which was upside down in the water in a deep culvert.
It’s been just two weeks since another Waco jury sentenced Lacey Leann Kutscherousky, 18, of West to two years in prison and a $2,500 fine in an accident that killed her cousin.
Kutscherousky had earlier also pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter.
(Adam Fox contributed to this story)