A Woodland man whose friend died in a drunken high-speed crash following a police pursuit made a plea deal Monday that spares him from a potential murder conviction.
Douglas Atriou Woodall, 23, is expected to receive a 12-year, four-month state prison term after admitting to felony counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, evading police and conspiracy, according to Yolo County Deputy District Attorney Kyle Hasapes. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 8 in Yolo Superior Court.
His public defender, Andrea Pelochino, could not be reached for comment Tuesday about the plea agreement, which scrapped plans for a jury trial scheduled to begin this week.
Woodall had also faced murder, second-degree robbery and DUI charges in connection with the May 2 fatality, which stemmed from an early-morning robbery at a Chevron gas station on East Main Street and Pioneer Avenue in Woodland.
A witness alerted police to the in-progress holdup, during which Woodall’s friend, 31-year-old Aaron Granados, allegedly brandished a replica handgun at a clerk who was unable to open the store’s registers, according to testimony from Woodall’s May preliminary hearing. Granados left with a $34 bottle of vodka instead and got into Woodall’s waiting vehicle.
From there the chase was on, reaching speeds over 110 mph as Woodall fled north on Pioneer Avenue and County Road 101. That’s where Woodall lost control of his car, which rolled over into a field and ejected Granados from the passenger seat. He died at the scene.
A blood sample taken from Woodall as he received medical treatment showed a blood-alcohol content of 0.225 — nearly three times the driving limit of 0.08, according to court testimony. Investigators said Woodall, despondent over a recent breakup, had consumed beer and brandy since leaving work the day before, despite being on felony probation with conditions that required him to avoid alcohol.
That level of intoxication, coupled with the high-speed pursuit, prompted prosecutors to pursue a murder charge under the implied-malice theory of the law, which alleged that Woodall committed an intentional act that’s dangerous to human life, with conscious disregard to that fact.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene.
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