Who is Maria Guadalupe Hill? Drunk driver who killed friend in 2012 crash arrested AGAIN for DUI
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: A Seattle woman who crashed her car while under the influence in 2012 which resulted in killing her companion in the passenger seat has been arrested once again for drunk driving. This time Maria Guadalupe Hill was caught only a mile from the scene of the terrible collision that happened earlier and was charged with a DUI.
On November 15, Hill was detained after the Washington State Patrol pulled her over while she was traveling north on I-5 which runs the length of the US's west coast from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. She reportedly had been drifting out of her lane close to the Columbian Way exit in the South Seattle neighborhood while traveling at 28 mph in a 60 mph zone on the highway. After rfailing field sobriety tests and blowing a .175 on an alcohol detection gadget, the defendant was put in handcuffs. A single count of felony DUI was ultimately brought against her. This is the third time Hill has been arrested on the charges of DUI.
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Hill was found guilty of vehicular homicide in 2012 after killing her friend Valerie Cartillar, 33, in a head-on collision with a pickup truck on I-5 in downtown Seattle. Cartillar died at the scene but the pickup truck driver and Hill merely sustained non-life-threatening injuries, according to Komo News. As per a police report from 2012, the driver's blood alcohol level was .21. She admitted to the Washington State Police that she had been drinking prior to getting behind the wheel. On their trip back to Covington, Cartillar was a passenger. Later that year, Hill was sentenced to five years in prison. “Despite this conviction and the tragic loss of life of her passenger, [Hill] is again driving impaired on Interstate 5. She represents a significant risk to community safety,” King County Prosecutor Adam Eucker said in a court affidavit obtained by Komo News.
A judge ordered Hill's release last week but with restrictions on her use of alcohol while driving and living under monitored home surveillance. The suspect's trial is scheduled to begin in February 2023 for her most recent DUI charge. Hill’s history of DUI charges dates back to 2003 when she was first arrested. “[Hill] is unable or unwilling to control her alcohol use and is a grave danger to the community, having traded one addiction for another,” said Eucker on Hill’s 2012 DUI charges.