Fresno County jury convicts repeat DUI driver in deadly Highway 180 crash

Jurors in Fresno County took about an hour Wednesday to convict Leigha Linae Addington of second-degree murder in the Highway 180 crash that killed 65-year-old Brenda Sue Ricci, a retired hairdresser from Fresno. The verdict marked a sharp legal turn in a case that began with a head-on collision on April 17, 2021, just west of Cornelia Avenue.

Addington, 33, was also found guilty of other alcohol-related driving charges and enhancements. Prosecutors said she was driving while impaired, on a suspended license, and on probation from an earlier DUI case when her vehicle crossed into oncoming traffic and struck Ricci. Court records and earlier crash coverage said Addington was about three times over the legal alcohol limit.

Ricci’s family attended the hearing, and her husband, Mark Booze, had waited through years of grief for a resolution that ended with a murder conviction rather than a routine drunken-driving fatality case. The trial’s fast pace underscored how clearly prosecutors framed the case for jurors: this was not an isolated mistake, but the latest in a pattern of conduct that had already put Addington on notice.

That history mattered. The Fresno Bee reported that Addington had two prior DUI convictions, one in Fresno County in 2016 and another in Stanislaus County in 2021. In California, that kind of record can support a so-called Watson murder theory, named for the California Supreme Court’s People v. Watson decision. The legal idea is simple and severe: if a driver has already been warned that drunk driving can kill, and then chooses to drive drunk again, prosecutors can argue the driver acted with implied malice.

That is why Fresno County District Attorney’s Office prosecutors pursued second-degree murder instead of a standard DUI homicide charge. The conviction sends a message that repeat offenders who ignore prior arrests, prior convictions, suspended licenses, and probation can face decades in prison, not just a short sentence tied to a traffic death.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Steven Ueltzen said sentencing was set for May 13. Addington faces a possible term of 15 years to life in prison. Public inmate records list her date of birth as October 4, 1992, matching the 33-year-old defendant identified in court.

The case also reflects a tougher stance in Fresno County toward chronic impaired drivers, where prosecutors have increasingly treated some fatal crashes as murder cases when a defendant’s record shows repeated warnings. For Ricci’s family, the verdict closed one chapter of the case. For the next repeat offender who gets behind the wheel after a prior DUI, it sharpened the risk.