A man convicted of driving drunk and in the wrong direction on a North County highway, causing a fatal head-on crash into another vehicle, was sentenced Wednesday to nearly 16 years in state prison.
Robert Nicholas Spence, 39, was charged with murder, gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and DUI counts for the Jan. 3, 2021, crash that killed 24-year-old Danielle Foust on state Route 78 in Vista. Both Spence and Foust were hospitalized, and Foust later died in a hospital.
At Spence’s arraignment, Deputy District Attorney David Uyar said the defendant had a blood-alcohol level of nearly 0.24 percent shortly after the crash, which is three times the legal limit. The prosecutor said police received multiple 911 calls from witnesses who saw the defendant driving the wrong way and crashing into the highway’s cement center median prior to the fatal crash.
Prosecutors were able to charge Spence with murder due to a prior 2017 San Diego County DUI conviction.
A Vista Superior Court jury convicted Spence of some of the counts but deadlocked on the murder charge. He later pleaded guilty to other charges and was sentenced Wednesday to a stipulated 15 years and eight months in prison.
