Drunken driver receives life sentence in 2020 fatal collision

A Reno woman with a history of drunken driving received the maximum sentence of 10 years to life on Monday after she was convicted of vehicular homicide.

“Prison is too good for her,” crash survivor Thomas Staugaard said on the stand in answer to a defense attorney's assertion his client could be in prison for the rest of her life. “It will be better than dying in the middle of Highway 395 on a dark night. At least she’ll have a nice hospital bed when she dies in prison.”

Staugaard said he wasn’t able to warn his mother Laura on Feb. 28, 2020, when he saw the headlights from the vehicle 67-year-old Joan Kathryn Wenger was recklessly driving on Highway 395.

Staugaard, a tow truck driver, said that it was the third time he’d been hit by a drunken driver.

“I don’t expect to see a penny from her,” Staugaard said. “She’s never given a crap about what any other judge has ever said.”

Wenger was northbound on Highway 395 in someone else’s Toyota Tacoma from Mammoth Lakes with a half bottle of whiskey at around 9 p.m. when she slammed into the back of the Toyota 4Runner Staugaard and his mother were in approaching Johnson Lane. 

Prosecutor A.J. Hames pointed out the Staugaards were moving when Wenger slammed into the back of their vehicle.

The collision resulted in Laura Staugaard, 70, being ejected from the vehicle.

Staugaard said when he gained consciousness after the collision, he found his mother lying on the highway. He saw first-responders working on her but knew she hadn’t survived.

Joan Wenger

 

A warrant was issued for Wenger’s arrest in connection with the collision in December 2020. She told the judge she used the time to get her affairs in order in Colorado and Arizona making sure her animals had a home.

She was arrested in Colorado but released on bail, and said she was headed back to Nevada when she was arrested in Arizona and was extradited back to the Silver State.

“I wish every day that horrific deadly decision to drink and drive had never happened,” she said.

Under an agreement with prosecutors, Wenger agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a recommendation of 10-25 years in prison.

District Judge Tom Gregory sentenced her to 10 years to life in prison. Either way she would be eligible for parole after a decade in prison. She was given credit for 250 days time served in custody.

“She will likely spend the rest of her life behind bars,” Hames said. “This was a crime with victims. She’s not the victim in this case. It was her decision to drink and drive.”

In addition to her prison sentence, she was ordered to pay $36,299 in restitution.