A local woman was sentenced to 22 years in prison Thursday for multiple felony charges stemming from her drunken rampage through a gated subdivision on Halloween night 2013.
Twila Gail Watson, 29, had pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of second-degree battery and four counts of aggravated assault, each punishable by up to six years in prison, and a misdemeanor count of driving while intoxicated, but prosecutors let an eight-woman, four-man jury decide her fate after a two-day hearing in Garland County Circuit Court.
The jury deliberated for about one hour before recommending the maximum sentence of six years each on both the battery counts, involving the two most seriously injured victims; four years each on two of the assault charges, involving a mother and her 4-year-old son who were thrown from a vehicle Watson struck; and then one year each on the remaining two assault charges, involving a child who was almost struck and one man who was in a vehicle that was hit.
The jury recommended the sentences be served consecutively, for a total of 22 years in prison. In addition to the prison term, she was also sentenced to the maximum of one year in the county jail and a $1,000 fine on the DWI charge. Watson must also pay $420 in court costs.
Prosecutors had rested their case after the end of testimony Wednesday, and Watson was the only one to testify on her behalf when the hearing resumed Thursday morning.
Watson said that before Oct. 31, 2013, one of her cousins was punched in a bar fight and later died, another cousin committed suicide, her grandfather died of heat exhaustion and an aunt had also died. Only two weeks before that night, she had learned Mark Reynolds, her boyfriend of 11 years and father of her two children, had fainted at work due to "something to do with his heart."
She said it was Reynolds who had suggested going trick-or-treating at the subdivision, located in the area of Quail Ridge Drive, and that she "had never been there before and couldn't tell you how to get there now." Reynolds drove them there in a gold 2004 Toyota Corolla, and she noted it had insurance that paid all the damage claims from that night.
She admitted she drank about half a pint of vodka earlier, around 5 p.m., before Reynolds got home from work, and they went to the subdivision around 6 p.m. She said they had only gone to five or six houses when she and Reynolds got into an argument.
"I wanted to go home," she said. "I knew I shouldn't be there (after drinking)." She said she and Reynolds separated to "take a breather" and he walked back toward the gate. She said she returned to the car and accidentally "squealed" one of the tires and a man "started cursing at me" and told her, "'We don't do that in this neighborhood.'"
She said, "The next thing I knew he punches me in the face," but acknowledged that "I had been drinking and was probably already messed up." She said she blacked out and woke up again after hitting "a bush or tree" with the car.
Chief Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Lawrence questioned why Watson had never mentioned being punched before and noted, "It's ironic how everything else is fuzzy but you remember that vividly." Watson said she had told her attorney, Dale Adams, about the punch, but admitted she never told authorities.
She said she remembered Jennifer Rowton, who sustained the most serious injuries, coming up to her window talking to her and that she told her "I was trying to get back to Mark and I just wanted to get out of there."
Watson admitted Thursday Rowton was "just trying to help me" and that it was her fault she got run over. She said, "She told me she was trying to help me, but she was trying to get my keys. I thought I was getting tricked," noting she even thought Rowton might be with the guy who punched her.
She said Rowton had her left arm through the steering wheel and then someone started yelling and "it scared me" so she let off the brake and "touched the gas" and the tire caught Rowton's foot and pulled her under the car.
Watson said she didn't know if she "felt a bump" when she backed over Rowton, but then "everybody was yelling that I was on her and I was trying to get off her" when she pulled forward, running over her again. She said she didn't remember backing over her a third time, noting, "I wasn't thinking at that point. I was panicked. There was no thought to it, it felt like everyone was after me."
She said she remembered when Nathan Sanders came to her window and that he grabbed her arm, bruising her. "I was still moving and he was on me," she said. "I was trying to get him off me. That's when I hit the SUV."
When questioned why she didn't stop at that point, having injured two people, she said, "I had been punched in the face, then this woman was trying to get in my car, this other guy was grabbing my arm, I thought they were going to hurt me. I just had to get out of there."
She said she was trying to protect her two children, then 1 and 6, who were in the back seat. "I should never have been there. Everything that happened that night is against everything I believe in. It was all a blur until I hit the trailer."
Watson acknowledged she was five months pregnant at the time of the incident and shouldn't have been drinking. She claimed she hasn't drank any alcohol since that night. When Lawrence pointed out her bond was revoked at one point since her arrest when she tested positive for alcohol, she said, "Those machines are messed up."
Watson lost custody of her children on Dec. 3, but was able to regain custody after completing a rehabilitation program at Quapaw House, parenting classes, anger and stress management classes, relationship counseling, AA and MADD programs, and numerous other classes that were part of her case plan with the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
When questioned by Adams, Watson said she accepts responsibility for her actions that night. "If I wasn't there this never would have happened." She noted she "has never been in any trouble before" and had no prior convictions.
When asked by Lawrence if she deserved a "stiff punishment," Watson said, "That's not for me to say."
In her closing, Lawrence said voluntary intoxication is not a defense for criminal offenses in Arkansas. "You are responsible for your actions. Period. You don't get a pass." She said Watson "seems to think of herself as some kind of victim. She's not. It's not about her. It's about them," she said, motioning toward the victims in the crowd.
"They were minding their own business that night. Trick-or-treating with their families. It was her decisions and actions that brought us here and your decision will affect the safety of our community cause she will be back. And we have to hope she's learned from her mistake."
Lawrence noted Watson "never even said she was sorry" during her testimony. "There are mistakes and there are crimes that change people's lives forever and that's what she's done."
Adams urged the jury to "apply the appropriate punishment to each individual crime" and not just give her the maximum "on all counts across the board" because some of the victims didn't sustain any injuries.
He also noted "this was her only brush with the law in almost 30 years" and there was "very little likelihood she would commit another offense." He asked them for "justice tempered with mercy" and to consider her three young children.
In his rebuttal, Deputy Prosecutor Trent Daniels noted that Watson is now a six-time convicted felon. He said he was 36 and not a felon and the members of the jury were not felons.
In setting her sentence, he said, "We have to operate within the parameters of the law. When she was running over people drunk, she didn't have to play by the rules."
Local on 04/22/2016