Last Updated on January 14, 2023 by C-CAR
LOS ANGELES >> Lawyers for a Fontana woman, who is accused of killing six people in a wrong-way DUI crash on the 60 Freeway last year, are looking to suppress the woman’s blood test.
Attorneys for Olivia Carolee Culbreath, 22, filed a motion involving her blood sample and its analysis during court proceedings Wednesday at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles.
Culbreath’s attorneys are alleging that California Highway Patrol officers did not obtain a search warrant before securing a blood sample.
They argued that she was unconscious at the time the blood sample was taken and could not authorize law enforcement and medical personnel to take the sample.
In the motion Culbreath’s attorneys argue the blood sample taken by CHP officers with the help of medical personnel was a violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, the state’s Constitution and the state Penal Code.
The crash occurred at 4:42 a.m. and Culbreath was taken to the hospital and arrested, according to the lawyers’ document, and she was in custody for more than an hour “before police told hospital personnel to extract blood.”
About three hours after the crash, at 7:40 a.m. an officer asked a nurse to draw a blood sample, according to the document. An attempt to take a blood sample was made at 7:45 a.m. and a doctor made another, and successful attempt at 7:53 a.m. by drawing it from Culbreath’s inner thigh.
“The methods used to extract the blood, while ostensibly medical, were mainly medieval” according to the document.
During a preliminary hearing a CHP officer testified that a nurse tried to draw blood from Culbreath but had difficulty doing so. A doctor was able to take the sample from Culbreath’s inner thigh.
Culbreath is accused of driving a Chevrolet Camaro east on the westbound 60 Freeway at speeds approaching 100 mph on Feb. 9, 2014 before allegedly being involved in a wrong way, head-on crash at about 4:45 a.m. in Diamond Bar, the CHP said.
The car crashed head-on into a sport utility vehicle. Another vehicle then crashed into the SUV, the CHP said.
Six people died in the incident, including two women in Culbreath’s car.
Culbreath’s sister, Maya, 24, of Rialto, was one of the two women. The other was Kristin Melissa Young, 21, of Chino.
Four Huntington Park residents traveling in the SUV were thrown from the vehicle and died. The four Huntington Park residents were Gregorio Mejia-Martinez, 47; Leticia Ibarra, 42; Jessica Jasmine Mejia, 20; and Ester Delgado, 80.
During a pre-trial hearing CHP investigators said witnesses saw Culbreath drinking at a Fullerton bar hours before the crash.
The case is scheduled to return to court Dec. 4.
