DUI driver sentenced to 22 years for running over, killing Steamboat's Lacey Lewis
Lacey Lewis was studying to be a certified nurse. To care for people. It was someone else's moment of carelessness that ended her life.
Lewis was walking in the crosswalk of an intersection with her boyfriend a year ago when a drunk driver ran her down.
That driver, 46-year-old Jessica Stahl, stepped out of her car after the collision and asked Lewis's boyfriend, "Did I hit her?," according to prosecutors in her criminal case. Stahl did not attempt to help Lewis, did not call 911, and drove off when police approached her car several minutes later, they said.
Stahl was eventually convicted by a jury of Vehicular Homicide-DUI.
On Friday, she was sentenced to 22 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections for the deadly crash.
The incident happened just after 2 a.m. on June 16, 2022. Before the fatal collision, drivers reported Stahl's Pontiac Grand Prix was weaving across lanes as it went through a construction zone on Parker Road.
Lewis and her boyfriend were crossing Parker Road at Cottonwood at Cottonwood Drive. They were returning home from a bar.
Parker Police Department officers reported finding Lewis with no pulse and blood pooling around her head where she was lying in the intersection, according to the arrest affidavit in the case. They began trying to save her life.
Lewis passed away hours later in a hospital.
Stahl was pulled over by police after she left the scene. Her 8-year-old child was crying in the back seat.
Stahl immediately displayed impairment, officers wrote in the affidavit.
"Two nurses with more than 40 years of combined experience couldn't draw blood," 18th Judicial Deputy District Attorney Sherri Giger stated in the DA's press release. "Medical staff and officers had never witnessed such extensive track marks and destroyed veins from heroin use."
The were able to obtain a urine sample instead. Stahl tested positive for Heroin, Methamphetamine, Vicodin, Fentanyl, Suboxone and Diphenhydramine.
Lacey Lewis was 25 years old.
