FARMINGTON – A 51-year-old Jay woman pleaded guilty to manslaughter Friday for killing her husband in a drunken driving crash a year ago.
Barbara Benoit was driving with a blood alcohol content one-and-a-half times the legal limit when her Subaru Outback jumped a guardrail on Franklin Road in Jay and crashed, fracturing the skull of her husband, Peter Benoit, and killing him, according to a state prosecutor.
Benoit faces up to 30 years in prison for the Class A felony.
She is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 20 in Franklin County Superior Court.
Assistant District Attorney Andrew Robinson said in court Friday the Benoits were coming home from their restaurant, Peter’s Seafood & Steak on Fairbanks Road in Farmington, when the crash happened on July 12, 2009.
When Officer Troy Young arrived at the scene, he found a large amount of debris and a purse that belonged to Barbara Benoit, said Robinson.
Around the same time, Robinson said, Franklin County dispatchers received several 911 hang-up calls from the Benoits’ home at 39 Davis Road.
Young went to the home and found Barbara Benoit, the damaged Subaru and Peter Benoit, 56, who was dead.
Young reported that Barbara Benoit “appeared to have been suffering from signs of shock” and admitted that she had two glasses of wine before driving home, Robinson said.
An emergency medical technician drew Benoit’s blood while treating her for injuries, and an analysis showed that she had a blood alcohol level of 0.12 percent.
Barbara Benoit ruptured her spleen in the crash, according to court documents.
Benoit’s attorney, David Austin, told Justice Michaela Murphy on Friday that Benoit drove from the scene of the accident to her home, about 1,500 feet away, because she didn’t have a phone in her car.
From there, Austin said, she removed her husband from the passenger seat and gave him CPR.
Robinson asked Murphy to hold a sentence hearing on Aug. 20, when he and Austin would come forward with a joint recommendation, he said.
The state dropped a secondary charge of aggravated operating under the influence, a class B felony.
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