DUI driver arrested after flipping car upside down in Stafford County: Deputies
A Fredericksburg woman was arrested for drunk driving on Monday, Aug. 1, 2023, after her car flipped onto its roof, according to the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office. (courtesy of Stafford County Sheriff’s Office)
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STAFFORD COUNTY, Va. (7News) — A Fredericksburg woman was arrested for drunk driving Monday after her car flipped onto its roof, according to the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office.
Around 4:05 a.m., authorities were called to the area of Kings Highway and White Oak Road for a single-vehicle crash after a person reported a vehicle was off the road and upside down. When deputies arrived, the vehicle was spotted nearly 40 feet off the road.
The 38-year-old driver reportedly told authorities she thought she fell asleep while driving and that she had only consumed “a little bit” of alcohol. Deputies said she later admitted to consuming a Coors Light and two wine coolers.
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She was arrested for driving under the influence as well as failure to maintain control of a vehicle, officials said. She was held at Rappahannock Regional Jail on a $1,000 secured bond.
No injuries were reported.
Woman sentenced to prison for high-speed DUI crash that killed her 3 children and another driver
By John Chapman and Elaina Riley
Published: Jun. 20, 2025 at 12:59 PM GMT+7
OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT/Gray News) – A 34-year-old Nebraska woman will serve a minimum of 70 years in prison for a fiery drunken driving crash that killed four people, including her own children.
Rachel Bickerstaff, of Omaha, was sentenced Wednesday to between 140 and 180 years in prison for four counts of motor vehicle homicide as a result of the crash that killed her 5-year-old, 18-month-old and newborn child.
The other driver, 70-year-old Michael Sales, of Council Bluffs, also died at the scene.
Douglas County District Court Judge Moll Keane sentenced Bickerstaff to up to 45 years for each count. She could be eligible for parole in 70 years due to Nebraska’s “good time” law.
Prosecutors called it one of the worst drunken driving cases they’ve ever dealt with in Douglas County.
Bickerstaff pleaded no contest to the charges in March. A fifth charge of DUI causing serious bodily injury was dropped as part of the plea agreement.
The charges stem from the September 2024 crash near 10th Street and Douglas Street. Investigators say Bickerstaff reached a top speed of 142 mph. She ran a red light going over 100 mph when she hit Sales, who was on his way home from work.
Court documents show her blood alcohol level came back as .216, which is nearly three times the legal limit.
Bickerstaff also received a charge for assault of a confined person in May. The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office says she assaulted her cellmate while in jail.
Court statements
Prosecutors said in court Wednesday that while the crash wasn’t intentional, it also wasn’t an accident.
Bickerstaff’s attorney told the judge that her client had a tough childhood. She had witnessed and endured a lot of abuse in her home, and started drinking and doing methamphetamine at age 12.
She apologized in court.
“I can say over and over how sorry I am, but that would never change the situation,” Bickerstaff said. “The hurt and pain I caused, I wish I could take it back. I would trade my life for all the life lost.”
She said she lost everything in the crash and asked the court to understand that she made the most tragic decision of her life when she got behind the wheel while impaired.
“So, if you can understand, I need help, and where I stand when it comes to me speaking about my victims, I’m sorry. That will never be enough,” she said.
Sales’ daughter tried to describe what it must have been like for her mother to break the news of his death to her family.
“I cant imagine what it must have felt like to pick up the phone and call my sister and I to tell us that our hero was gone. I dropped to the floor of my living room screaming. It felt like my soul had left my body. That moment shattered everything,” Sales’ oldest daughter described.
Sales’ family asked the court to issue a sentence that might spare some other family the pain of what her loved ones are going through.
“I’m here today because my dad can’t be,” his daughter said. “I speak because his voice was stolen and I ask this court, I beg this court, to deliver a sentence that reflects the weight of what was taken from us.”
Copyright 2025 WOWT via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Drunk driver was fleeing abusive partner, court hears
Rachel Webb, 49, of Gagetown, had three times legal limit of booze in her system when she rolled SUV but tells court she was trying to escape from domestic violence
Sep 07, 2023Subscribe
A Gagetown woman who told a court she was trying to escape from an abusive relationship when she drove drunk and rolled her SUV was ordered to get counselling Wednesday.
Rachel Webb, 49, of Old Mill Road, pleaded guilty in Fredericton provincial court Wednesday to a charge of driving while impaired.
Crown prosecutor Nina Johnsen said an RCMP officer was dispatched to the scene of a single-vehicle accident in Gagetown on Dec. 16, where they found an SUV on its roof in a ditch.
The investigation revealed the vehicle went into one ditch and rolled into another one, court heard, taking out a couple of mailboxes in the process.
Webb had been at the wheel, the prosecutor said.
“[The officer] noted she was incoherent,” Johnsen said, noting there was a smell of liquor coming from her.
“She was swaying while standing still and had to be supported.”
The officer learned from witnesses at the scene that Webb had asked them not to call 911 when the incident occurred, court heard.
Johnsen said to determine Webb’s level of impairment, a blood sample had to be taken. Tests revealed she had 250 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, more than three times the legal limit.
The prosecutor said this marks Webb’s first offence of any kind, but given the level of intoxication and the circumstances of the incident, it appeared there might be an alcohol issue at play.
As such, she asked the court – in addition to a mandatory minimum fine of $2,000 and the minimum driving prohibition of a year – to impose a one-year term of probation including conditions for assessment and treatment for substance abuse.
But defence lawyer Laura Murphy said Webb doesn’t have a drinking problem. Instead, she said, she was using alcohol as a coping mechanism for a different problem: being the victim of abuse.
“Ms. Webb at the time of the offence was in the process of fleeing from a domestic-violence situation,” the defence lawyer said.
“I don’t drink anymore,” the offender told the court. “Not since I left the relationship.”
She said she is on medication for anxiety now.
Murphy agreed with the fine and driving ban as suggested by the prosecution, but said probation wasn’t necessary in the circumstances.
“I know you were in a bad situation,” Judge Lucie Mathurin told Webb, adding that the accident was serious.
She imposed the $2,000 fine plus a customary victim-fine surcharge of $600, and prohibited Webb from driving anywhere in Canada for a year.
The judge imposed the requested 12-month probationary period as well, but she said it wasn’t to direct Webb to get help for drinking. Instead, she said, she made counselling a condition of the order given the trauma due to intimate-partner violence.
“Talking to somebody is not onerous. It’s simply good for you,” Mathurin said.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.
