A man who opted to walk instead of drive home because he had
three beers was hit and killed by a drunk driving alcohol and drug addiction
counselor Saturday night in Torrance, California.
The 31-year-old Philip Moreno who spent his last day alive
having beer and watching a college football game with friends at a bar called
The Branch Office was struck head on by a Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible as he
was crossing Torrance Boulevard. He was hit so hard he got knocked off his
shoes and got lodged in the windshield of the car. He was carried writhing atop
the hood and stuck in the windshield for two miles before other motorists
managed to swarm the drunk driver at a traffic light at Crenshaw Boulevard and
182nd Street and snatch the car keys away from 51-year-old Sherri Lynn Wilkins.
When responding rescue workers arrived and pulled Moreno off the windshield, he
still had a pulse. However, he died on arrival at the hospital.
Wilkins who was found with a blood-alcohol level more than
double the 0.08 legal limit was arrested and charged with one felony count each
of murder, gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, DUI causing injury,
driving with a .08 percent or higher blood alcohol causing injury, and leaving
the scene of an accident. Her arraignment was postponed for next month after a
brief court hearing Tuesday. She was ordered held on a $2.25 million bail.
Wilkins has two prior burglary convictions and is already a DUI third striker.
If convicted as charged, she faces up to life in prison.
When police apprehended Wilkins, she told them that she did
not stop because she panicked. She has a previous DUI
hit-and-run arrest, but charges were not pursued
because tests found she was not under the influence of any substance. In 2010,
she faced charges of driving while intoxicated, hit and run and being under
the influence of a controlled substance after she hit a power pole at the
intersection of 182nd Street and Hawthorne Boulevard which she dragged into the
road, where it struck and damaged other cars. The case was however eventually
dismissed as test results for her blood-alcohol level came back at zero and the
levels of drugs were "so low" that no expert would testify that there
was an impairment. Wilkins though reached a civil compromise with the other
drivers whose cars she damaged.
Wilkins who had a certification in drug and alcohol
counseling from the Loyola Marymount University worked at a Torrance Twin Town
treatment center where she led small group classes of recovering addicts six
evenings a week. On her Myspace profile, she wrote that she had been drug-free
for 11 years, was a Buddhist and was planning trips to Chicago to see her
daughter, a medical intern, and to Hawaii.