Dec. 11—A woman was convicted Tuesday of two counts of vehicular homicide for causing a 2020 DWI crash that killed two women in Rio Arriba County.
A jury in state court in Tierra Amarilla found Cory Christine Johnson, 49, guilty of two second-degree felonies of causing death by driving under the influence in a 2020 crash involving 29-year-old Felisha Barela and 23-year-old Felisha Barela died. -old judge Gutierrez-Cruz.
Police said alcohol and a handful of prescription drugs were found in Johnson’s system after the crash.
Johnson’s place of residence is unclear. Her address is listed in Colorado on some court documents, but others show a post office box in Abiquiú.
According to charging documents, the crash occurred in June 2020 on US 84 between Hernández and Medanales. Rio Arriba County sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene and found two vehicles had collided, and Barela and Gutierrez-Cruz were pronounced dead at the scene.
A witness told police he had been driving behind Johnson and saw her car turn into the opposite lane just before the crash, an affidavit said.
Charges filed immediately after the crash were dismissed and refiled in early 2023.
In a news release Wednesday, a spokesperson for the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office wrote that the delays were “partially due to Johnson’s injuries and the time required for drug laboratory analysis to be completed.”
The press release noted that a police crash analysis showed Johnson was driving 66 to 68 mph at the time of the crash and that she appeared to be under the influence of alcohol, morphine, oxycodone, Xanax and nordiazepam.
“We will continue to hold offenders accountable to protect our community and prevent the devastating consequences of drunk driving,” the Attorney General’s Office said in the news release.
