New Orleans man killed by impaired, wrong-way driver near Gray, LSP says

GRAY, La. (WVUE) - A 77-year-old New Orleans man was killed and his passenger seriously injured in an early morning highway collision that was caused by a drunk, wrong-way driver, Louisiana State Police said Sunday (April 3).

The fatal wreck occurred just before 3 a.m. on U.S. Highway 90, claiming the life of Joseph Sias at the scene and sending the front-seat passenger in his 2004 Toyota Highlander to a hospital with serious injuries. State troopers said neither had been wearing a seat belt.

Trooper Ross Brennan, spokesman for Troop C of the State Police, said Sias’ vehicle was struck head-on by a 2018 Dodge Charger driven by Katelynn Marie Scott of Houma. Brennan said Scott drove her car the wrong direction up an eastbound off-ramp just west of Louisiana Highway 316, striking Sias’ vehicle as it traveled in the right land of eastbound US Hwy. 90.

The 24-year-old Scott, who was wearing a seat belt, sustained only minor injuries, police said. But Brennan said the woman “displayed signs of impairment” and was arrested, before also providing a breath sample “that showed a blood-alcohol level over the legal limit,” the LSP said.

A toxicology sample also was collected from Sias for analysis as part of the investigation, Brennan said.

Scott was booked into the Terrebonne Parish Criminal Justice Complex on counts of vehicular homicide, first-degree vehicular negligent injuring, DWI first offense and driving on divided highways.

Vehicular homicide is punishable by 5 to 30 years upon conviction in Louisiana, with the first three to five years of that prison term served without the possibility of parole, depending on the level of a defendant’s blood alcohol content at the time of a fatal accident.

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