STEVENS POINT — A 29-year-old woman who was driving drunk with a 9-year-old passenger when she struck and killed a motorcycle driver was convicted Tuesday of homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle and two additional charges.
Billie Jo McSherry of Tigerton will be sentenced July 6 in Portage County Circuit Court after a presentencing investigation is completed. In addition to the homicide charge, McSherry pleaded guilty to injury by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle and OWI causing injury to a passenger younger than 16. All other charges were dismissed.
Under Wisconsin law, McSherry faces up to 40 years in the Wisconsin Prison System on the homicide charge alone when she is sentenced.
McSherry, who has two prior OWI convictions and a long list of traffic citations on her driving record, was arrested in early July after she crossed the center line of Hwy. 49 in the town of Alban, crashing head-on into a motorcycle driven by 48-year-old Robert Korhonen of Antigo.
Korhonen died in the crash, while a passenger on the motorcycle, 25-year-old Stacey Zarda, was critically injured, police said.
McSherry, along with her and her 9-year-old passenger, were treated for non-life threatening injuries.
McSherry remains in the Portage County Jail, where she has been held on a $350,000 cash bond since July.
