{"id":90759,"date":"2020-01-13T19:24:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T19:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mistrial-declared-for-man-accused-of-killing-one-in-u-s-highway-160-crash\/"},"modified":"2020-01-13T19:24:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-13T19:24:47","slug":"mistrial-declared-for-man-accused-of-killing-one-in-u-s-highway-160-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mistrial-declared-for-man-accused-of-killing-one-in-u-s-highway-160-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"Mistrial declared for man accused of killing one in U.S. Highway 160 crash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A mistrial was declared Monday in the trial of a Bloomfield man accused of crossing the centerline on U.S. Highway 160 west of Hesperus, killing a 56-year-old woman and injuring her husband and their two grandchildren.<\/p>\n

Donald Mills, 30, was charged with one count of careless driving causing death and three counts of careless driving causing bodily injury stemming from the incident Dec. 26, 2018.<\/p>\n

Sixth Judicial District Attorney Christian Champagne said the jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision, prompting the mistrial. He said prosecutors will re-examine the case, try to understand the jury\u2019s reasoning and speak with the victims\u2019 family before deciding whether to retry the case.<\/p>\n

The Colorado State Patrol said Mills was headed west when he lost control of a box truck<\/a> he was driving around 7:25 a.m., hitting a Ford Explorer head-on with a family of four inside.<\/p>\n

Douglas Martinez of Cortez and his two grandchildren, ages 5 and 8, were taken to Mercy Regional Medical Center with multiple injuries.<\/p>\n

His wife, Tary Martinez, was listed in critical condition the day of the crash. The next day, Martinez died from her injuries, said Capt. Adrian Driscoll.<\/p>\n

Authorities said at the time neither excessive speed nor alcohol was suspected as contributing factors. Champagne declined to comment Monday on what prosecutors say caused Mills to cross the centerline.<\/p>\n

Mills\u2019 trial started Jan. 9 and was overseen by La Plata County Judge Dondi Osborne.<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bloomfield man charged with careless driving causing death<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,866,254,69],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-90759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-hesperus","tag-road-crash","tag-u-s-highway-160"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90759"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=90759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}