Watch CBS News

Woman accused in wrong-way fatal crash just had license reinstated

LOS ANGELES – The license of a woman who allegedly drove drunk in a fatal, wrong-way crash had been reinstated less than a week before the accident, CBS Los Angeles reports.

Olivia Culbreath had had her license suspended twice, once in 2010 when she was 17 for excessive blood-alcohol content, and once for negligence in 2011, reports Tom Wait. It was reinstated on Feb. 4.

crash-two.jpg
A woman is accused of driving drunk in a wrong-way crash that killed six CBS News
 Six people were killed when Culbreath allegedly drove a Chevy Camaro into a Ford Explorer, which then hit a Ford Freestyle. The accident occurred at 4:50 a.m Sunday on a California freeway.

Culbreath, who faces charges of felony DUI and manslaughter, was one of only two survivors, and she is hospitalized with a broken femur and a ruptured bladder, the station reports.

Among the dead was her 24-year-old sister.

 The driver of the Freestyle, who also survived, told Wait that as he was carried from the wreckage to an ambulance, "I hear somebody say, 'There are bodies all over the place.'"


At the Culbreath family home Monday afternoon, a woman who identified herself as the driver’s grandmother spoke briefly.

"I’m just the grandmother but it’s too much. [I] can’t deal with [it] anymore," she said.


View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.