A 25-year-old Pleasant Hills man on Tuesday received a 3- to 6-year prison sentence for a December 2019 crash in Whitehall that killed a passenger.
Tyler DeGraffenreid told police he smoked marijuana that day and drank numerous beers and several shots of whiskey before the Dec. 15, 2019, crash on Brownsville Road.
DeGraffenreid was driving a Honda Accord at 101 mph when he lost control at a curve in the 4600 block of Brownsville Road, police said.
The car went through yards, driveways and rock beds in the area, throwing debris that broke the window of a house and a parked car’s rear window, police said. The car also hit a utility pole and barrel-rolled through another yard, police said.
DeGraffenreid’s passenger, Victoria Rose Verscharen, 23, was thrown through the car’s moon roof, police said.
When police responded to the crash they found DeGraffenreid seat-belted in the upside-down car. He freed himself from the wreckage and police could smell alcohol as he told them he was driving “too fast and reckless” and an animal ran into the road at the curve and he pressed the accelerator instead of the brake, police wrote in a criminal complaint.
DeGraffenreid’s blood alcohol level was .20% — more than twice the legal limit of .08%, police said.
Allegheny County Judge Alexander Bicket agreed to a sentence of three to six years in prison in exchange for pleading guilty to one count of homicide by vehicle, while driving under the influence and other charges DeGraffenreid faced were withdrawn by the District Attorney’s Office.
DeGraffenreid also pleaded guilty to a Jan. 12 DUI he subsequently was charged with by Whitehall police.
Bicket sentenced DeGraffenreid to three to six months in jail plus three years probation for that DUI, with the sentence to be served consecutive to the homicide sentence, according to the DA’s office.
