Gas leak delays trial of Waco woman accused of crashing into cars at school pick-up line while drunk
WACO, Texas (KWTX) - The trial of a Waco woman who police say was drunk and crashed into two cars in a school pick-up line was delayed Monday after a gas leak forced evacuation of the McLennan County Courthouse and adjacent buildings.
Jury selection in Whitney Ashton Hayes’ DWI trial had begun Monday morning in McLennan County Court-at-Law No. 2 when a contractor working on the renovation of the old downtown county jail struck a gas line between the courthouse and the courthouse annex, authorities said. The building is being converted into a county courts building.
County officials evacuated the courthouse, the annex, the county maintenance building and the former IT building as a precaution while the line was repaired. No injuries were reported, but first-floor courthouse employees reported smelling a strong odor of natural gas in their offices.
Hayes’ trial on the Class A misdemeanor charge will resume when the courthouse opens again Tuesday morning.
Hayes, 38, was arrested in September 2023 on DWI, endangering a child and bribery charges after Waco school district police notified a Department of Public Safety trooper that a suspected intoxicated driver crashed into two cars at Dean Highland Elementary School, 3300 Maple Ave.
The trooper alleged in an arrest affidavit that Hayes crashed into two other vehicles while their occupants were waiting in line to pick up their children from school.
School officials told the trooper that Hayes smelled strongly of alcohol and that one of the vehicles she crashed into was carrying three children ranging in ages from 10 months to 8.
“I made contact with Hayes, where she admitted to consuming alcoholic beverages before the crash,” the trooper wrote in the arrest affidavit. “When I asked her about how she hit the vehicles, she became irate and stated the vehicles were attempting to cut her in line, so she accelerated forward, intentionally causing her vehicle to crash into theirs.”
Hayes submitted to a sobriety test, “where she showed signs of intoxication,” the trooper alleged.
Court records show Hayes had a blood-alcohol content of 0.36 percent, more than four times the legal limit of 0.08 percent for intoxication.
“During the interaction, Hayes continued yelling at individuals, yelling racial slurs, and was not cooperative. After placing Hayes under arrest, she was transported to the McLennan County Jail. While transporting her, she continually attempted to bribe me with various amounts of large sums of money in exchange for me letting her go and not taking her to jail,” according to the affidavit.
The McLennan County District Attorney’s Office chose not to pursue the child endangerment, a state jail felony, and second-degree felony bribery charges against Hayes.
Hayes and her attorneys were in plea negotiations with prosecutors after the courthouse was evacuated, District Attorney Josh Tetens said Monday. Prosecutors Katie Clausen and Mariana Jordan offered Hayes a year in the county jail, which would be suspended for two years, and a $1,500 fine in exchange for her guilty plea.
She will either accept the plea offer or jury selection will resume Tuesday morning.
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