A 30-year-old man was sentenced last week to 29 years behind bars for getting behind the wheel of his vehicle drunk late last year and causing a collision that killed a Westminster woman.
Juan Ignacio Duran pleaded guilty last month to vehicular homicide, first-degree assault and attempted first-degree assault in the collision that killed Dianne Johnson, 71. He was sentenced in Jefferson County District Court on Thursday.
On Dec. 28, 2018, Westminster police received a report of a drunk driver in the 10600 block of Westminster Boulevard. Officers spotted Duran driving north in the southbound lanes of the thoroughfare, whereupon he collided with three vehicles.
Johnson was unconscious and had to be extracted from her vehicle, police said. She died at a hospital. The other drivers were not seriously injured.
Duran had a blood alcohol content level of 0.219% — more than double the legal limit of 0.08% — and he had 11 nanograms per milliliter of THC, the mind-altering chemical in marijuana, in his system, also more than double of the legal limit, police said.
