Police report: Man gets 3 1/2 years in vehicular homicide
Sunday, June 27, 2010
A Vancouver man who celebrated his birthday bar-hopping in downtown Portland was sentenced to 3½ years Friday after he crashed his car on Interstate 5, killing his girlfriend.
Marlana Ith, 25, died in a hospital. Christopher John Rice, 27, had a blood alcohol level of 0.25 percent, which is about three times Oregon’s legal limit for driving.
Rice was driving Ith and two friends back to Vancouver about 2:40 a.m. Dec. 28 when he struck a median near the Rose Quarter. The hood of his car tore off and landed in the southbound lanes. He kept driving — leaving a mile-long trail of debris — before crashing on a freeway exit, said Multnomah County deputy district attorney Chris Mascal.
Rice was charged with second-degree manslaughter, which carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of about six years. He plead guilty to criminally negligent homicide last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
Defense attorney Scott Raivio told Judge Richard Baldwin that Rice was “well employed” and had no criminal history before the crash.
Moments before the judge sentenced Rice on Friday, Rice told Ith’s family and friends that he was “terribly sorry. … I take full responsibility for everything that happened and the lack of judgment.”
Motorcyclist misses curve, ticketed for DUI
A 26-year-old Vancouver man apparently misjudged a curve on a highway on-ramp and was thrown off his motorcycle early Saturday morning, the Washington State Patrol reported.
Roy G. Boggs was heading onto eastbound state Highway 500, off Andresen Road, when he left the highway. According to the investigating trooper, the accident was caused by excessive speed and drunken driving. He was ticketed for DUI, according to the State Patrol.
Boggs was taken to Southwest Washington Medical Center with neck and back pain. His 2003 Honda CBR600 was totaled.
