A drunk driver from Florida who killed a mother and daughter after slamming into the back of their car at 130 miles per hour will spend the next 40 years behind bars, officials said.
Jacob Manuel, 33, was driving his Dodge Charger in a 45-mile-per-hour zone on John Pitts Road in Panama City when he ran the family’s SUV off the road and into a utility pole, according to the State Attorney’s Office for the 14th Judicial Circuit.
The alcohol-fueled May 2022 crash killed Tallulah Ellis, 78, and her daughter Tammy Hughes, 57.
A 9-year-old girl – Hughes’ daughter – was also in the car and critically injured in the deadly collision that crushed the vehicle, officials said.
“This case is a real tragedy, as is the case with most DUI-Manslaughters,” Chief Assistant State Attorney Mark Graham said during Tuesday’s sentencing.
“You have the Ellis and Hughes families that lost a mother and daughter – leaving behind great-grandchildren, grandchildren, children and more. And that’s forever.
“Then you have the defendant who is a relatively young man with no criminal record and he’s going to prison for 40 years from one bad night of making bad choices.”
Surveillance footage captured the alky entering a bar in Panama City and leaving three hours later with a “glass alcoholic beverage,” Florida Highway Patrol said in an affidavit, obtained by McClatchy News.
Manuel, who had a suspended license, rammed into the rear of the family’s Buick Enclave before his car spun off the road, hit a fence and went ablaze, prosecutors said.
He was pulled to safety, officials said, with the two women pronounced dead at the scene.
The plastered driver’s blood was drawn about three hours after the crash and revealed an alcohol level of .099%, the outlet reported.
The legal limit in all 50 states is .08%.
With his case set for trial – and jury waiting outside the courtroom – Manuel pleaded no contest to two counts of DUI-manslaughter and DUI with serious bodily injury, prosecutors said.
He faced life in prison if convicted at trial, but instead got the 40-year sentence in exchange for his plea.
Prosecutors said the victims’ families, who were in the courtroom, approved the state’s plea agreement before it was offered.
