A 25-year-old Little Rock woman has been sentenced to eight years in prison for killing a truck driver in a fiery March 2014 collision in which a witness said she was driving backwards.
Leigh Veronica Miller pleaded guilty to manslaughter before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims last week. The Class C felony carries a 10-year maximum sentence.
Her arrangement with prosecutors requires she serve a two-year suspended sentence following her release from prison. She had been scheduled to stand trial today.
Jacksonville trucker Terry Ray Harrell, a married father of three with eight grandchildren, died a month after his 60th birthday on Interstate 440 near the Fourche Dam Pike when Miller crashed her silver Chevrolet Impala into his Wal-Mart Stores Inc. tractor-trailer, igniting the big rig's gas tanks, according to Arkansas State Police reports.
Harrell was eastbound on the highway when Miller, driving backward, hit him. A witness told investigators the car was driving in reverse at a high rate of speed and swerving on the highway near the exit ramp when the Impala collided with the rig.
Miller said she had pulled onto the shoulder after missing her exit and denied using drugs or alcohol, but court records show she had a 0.02 blood-alcohol level, which is one-fourth of the legal driving limit of 0.08, and she tested positive for marijuana, prescription tranquilizers and anxiety medication.
Miller fractured an arm in the collision. Also hurt were her passenger, Devontae Akins, 23; and a second truck driver, Jose Arellano, 40, of Mexico. Arellano was driving his tractor-trailer in the center lane when he was hit by Harrell's burning truck after its collision with Miller, police said.
Miller was arrested six months after the wreck in September 2014. Court records show that in October 2014, she slashed the tires and scratched the car door of another woman, Raushearah Phillips, and was arrested for misdemeanor criminal mischief. She received a one-year suspended sentence on the charge last October after pleading no contest.
Metro on 03/09/2016