LOS ANGELES – A 31-year-old woman pleaded no contest Wednesday to two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated for a single-vehicle rollover crash in Beverly Hills last April that killed two of her passengers.
Taisha Warie Welch is expected to be sentenced on May 10 and faces seven years in prison for the deaths of 30-year-old Jenetta Williams of Palmdale and 24-year-old Denesha Stewart of Lakewood, according to Ricardo Santiago of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
The crash happened shortly before 1:30 a.m. on April 27, 2018, on Santa Monica Boulevard near Wilshire Boulevard, officials said.
Welch was driving a white BMW X5 at high rate of speed when the vehicle hit a curb and then slammed into a tree and flipped over, investigators told reporters at the scene. Six occupants were in the vehicle when it crashed. [View an image from the crash scene here.]
Williams and Stewart died at a hospital, and three other passengers were hurt, according to prosecutors.
Welch was arrested by Beverly Hills police the morning of the crash and subsequently released on bond a week later, according to jail records.
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