PUYALLUP — A man has been convicted of DUI vehicular homicide for crashing his car while driving drunk in Puyallup in 2019, killing his 52-year-old wife.
Jeffrey Lepley, 51, was convicted Tuesday by a jury in Pierce County Superior Court, the News Tribune reported. He’s scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 19.
Lepley was driving his Jaguar the afternoon of July 14, 2019 on Pioneer Way East with his wife, Trisha Lepley, in the passenger seat when the crash occurred. Lepley suffered a laceration to his ear, and his wife died at the scene.
At the time, deputies said Lepley admitted he’d been drinking prior to the wreck, and officials said he smelled of alcohol. Lepley was arrested after the crash, but a toxicology report did not come back until March 2020 and he was charged later that year.
The toxicology report showed Lepley’s blood-alcohol content was 0.19 percent, higher than the legal limit of 0.08 percent.
