Woman pleads guilty in huffing accident trial

CHRIS CATO/WSPA-TV
Published: September 12, 2008

Heather Hewitt, 20, pleaded guilty under the Alford Statute to two counts of felony DUI with great bodily injury on Thursday.

The judge sentenced Hewitt to serve up to 6 years in prison under the Youthful Offender Act. This means the Department of Corrections will determine her exact sentence, but it can be no more than six years.

In September 2007, Hewitt was driving a friend’s car on Beacon Light Road in Cowpens when she slammed into the back of pickup truck at a high rate of speed. Prosecutors say moments before the crash, Hewitt inhaled computer cleaner to get high.

Two of her passengers were critically injured, including 24-year old Jamie Maxwell, whose father pushed her into the courtroom in a wheelchair Thursday. Her mother told the judge that Jamie suffered a traumatic brain injury that has left her in a semiconscious state. She cannot walk, speak, or feed herself, and her mother described the nightmare that she and her husband live through everyday trying to rehabilitate their daughter on their own. 18-year old Maranda Poteat was also severely injured in the crash. She had every bone in her face broken and lost an eye. Her mother told the judge she still has to undergo 42 surgeries on her eyes.

Hewitt told the families she is “sorry and I never meant for this to happen”.