A Michigan woman has been charged with second-degree murder for crashing her vehicle into a birthday party, killing two young siblings and injuring multiple people, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Marshella Marie Chidester, 66, was taken into custody Saturday evening. Authorities said she was drunk when she plowed her SUV into a boat club in Monroe County, just south of Detroit.
The Swan Boat Club in Berlin Township was hosting a child’s birthday party. Two kids, an 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother, were killed in the crash.
Their older sibling, an 11-year-old boy, survived but is still hospitalized. He suffered fractures to his skull, ribs and both of his legs, according to the Detroit Free Press.
More than a dozen people were also injured. The kids’ mother suffered serious injuries and had to be hospitalized, according to Prosecuting Attorney Jeffery Yorkey.
During her arraignment on Tuesday, Chidester expressed no reaction as Judge Christian Horkey read all the charges against her: two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of operating a vehicle while intoxicated causing death, and four counts of operating a vehicle while intoxicated causing serious injuries.
Yorkey requested the bond to be set at $1.5 million, telling the court that video evidence shows “exactly what happened during this incident,” and noting Chidester suffers from “a very severe substance abuse issue [which is] corroborated by friends and family members, and she creates a very high risk to the public.”
Chidester’s defense attorney, Bill Colovos, asked the judge to set the bond at $100,000, saying his client has a history of having “epileptic-type seizures in her legs,” adding she only had one glass of wine before the crash.
The judge agreed with the prosecution, noting she’s facing two life sentences, two 15-year sentences and four five-year sentences.
A probable cause hearing was scheduled for April 30.
