DUI murder or tragic mistake? Attorneys debate driver’s role in fatal Pinole crash
Keri Cache, 34, faces a second degree murder charge.
MARTINEZ — A jury will likely soon decide the fate of a Sacramento woman who in 2016 crashed her car into another vehicle that was parked on the freeway, killing a 28-year-old Martinez man.
Keri Cache, 34, is facing charges of murder, hit and run, drunken driving and driving with a suspended license, all related to the February 2016 crash that killed Jose Daza Jr. The man was struck as he inspected a possible flat tire on his car while parked on an Interstate 80 shoulder in Pinole.
Cache’s defense is only contesting three of seven charges: murder, hit and run, and driving a car not equipped with an interlock device.
Cache has three prior DUI convictions, and prosecutors contend that she was intoxicated from drinking at a P.F. Chang’s restaurant in Emeryville earlier that evening. Cache’s attorney admits she was drinking earlier that day, but says she was not drunk when she got behind the wheel, and that the crash occurred because Cache became distracted by an off-duty cop who was tailgating her, and who Cache assumed at the time was an assailant intent on following her home.
Murder charges are rare in DUI-related fatalities, and require jurors to find that the defendant knew their actions were probably going to kill someone, yet ignored the warning signs.
The crash occurred near the Pinole Valley Road exit, when Cache’s white 2003 Chevrolet Malibu clipped Daza’s parked Toyota Corolla. Daza was outside of the car, and a witness said he was thrown into the air. The crash severed an artery in his leg and he died of blood loss.
Cache’s attorney said she did not know she had struck a person, and kept driving because she felt it was unsafe to stop on the freeway, after hitting what she believed was a parked car.
Cache was arrested in Solano County, near the Nut Tree Parkway exit in Vacaville, authorities said.
Speaking to jurors during closing arguments Wednesday afternoon, Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney Kabu Adodoadji said Cache was “only concerned about herself,” and that her history of drunken driving proved she knew the risks.
“She does not care. … Most people when they get a DUI, they never want to go through that again,” Adodoadji said. “But (Cache) didn’t.”
To dispel the notion that Cache didn’t care, her attorney, deputy public defender Jennifer Welch, showed the jury a video of Cache’s arrest. When an officer tells Cache that a person was killed in the crash, she is heard on video wailing, and repeatedly asking, “Somebody died?” as her voice rises. Several of Cache’s supporters in attendance began to cry or leave the courtroom as the video played.
Adodoadji pointed to the testimony of an off-duty Berkeley cop, who said on the stand that he followed Cache for several miles, and that she was weaving in and out of her lane and appeared to him to be a drunken driver. He showed the jury a picture of Cache’s car, which had a badly damaged hood from the collision.
“That damage left there shook the car, shook the steering wheel. … There is no way she didn’t know she hit somebody,” Adodoadji said.
Welch, meanwhile, contended that Cache was heading home to Sacramento that night, after she was unable to connect with a relative who was supposed to let her stay the night in the East Bay. She said Cache had been robbed weeks earlier, and that when she saw the off-duty cop following closely behind her on the freeway, she assumed it was another assailant trailing her.
“Her driving was affected by this fear,” Welch said. After the collision, Welch said, Cache slowed down, didn’t see anyone and continued to drive, assuming she had hit a parked car.
“When Ms. Cache is told that someone died, she is hysterical,” Welch said. “She is in disbelief. She is wailing and crying.”
If convicted of the second-degree murder charge, Cache would face a sentence of 15 years to life.