Port Arthur driver sentenced in wreck death case

Published 4:18 pm Thursday, January 11, 2018

Staff report

A Port Arthur driver was sentenced to 18 years in state prison for a one-vehicle wreck that left a passenger dead.

Jefferson County Criminal District Attorney Bob Wortham’s office said Judge Raquel West sentenced Vanessa Ann Davis, 56, on Thursday in 252nd District Court.

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A jury took less than an hour Wednesday to convict Davis of intoxication manslaughter. Davis could have been sentenced to two to 20 years.

The prosecutor’s office said Davis was driving near the intersection of Gulfway Drive and Ninth Avenue in Port Arthur at 7 a.m. July 5, 2015, when her vehicle hit a brick flower bed and crashed into a parking lot light pole before flipping over. Passenger Pamela Fields was ejected and killed and two other passengers were taken to local hospitals.

Witnesses and first-responders said Davis was “aggressive and paranoid” at the scene, the district attorney’s office said in an issued statement. At the hospital, police learned she had crack cocaine in her system.

Trial witnesses — they included a survivor and a local priest — said Davis was driving erratically at a high rate of speed on Gulfway, where she also ran a red light.

Family members offered testimony before West imposed the sentence.

Port Arthur police investigated the case with assistance from the Jefferson County Regional Crime Lab and Texas Department of Public Safety.