Staff Reports

A Benton County jury began hearing evidence Wednesday in the trial of a Fowler woman accused of driving impaired and causing a single-vehicle crash that killed one of her passengers.

Kara Crisp, 23, is charged in Benton Circuit Court with operating a vehicle with a controlled substance causing death, a Class B felony; operating a vehicle with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent or more causing death, a Class C felony; and reckless homicide, a Class C felony.

Crisp is accused of driving a 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee on Indiana 352 near Boswell the morning of May 26, 2007, that rolled several times and came to a rest on its side in a cornfield.

Crisp and her two passengers, Jeremy A. Bell, 22, of Fowler and Ismael Carabello III, 22, of Boswell, were thrown from the Jeep.

No one was wearing a seat belt.

Bell died at the scene.

Crisp is suspected of having marijuana metabolites and alcohol in her system at the time of the crash.

Indiana law requires only that narcotic metabolites be present to establish impaired driving.

Charges against Crisp were filed in November after a grand jury indictment.

The trial is expected to continue into Friday.