Judge denies sentence modification for woman convicted in Floyd OWI deaths

FLOYD COUNTY – Floyd County Circuit Court docket has denied lessening prison time for a Louisville female convicted of driving drunk and killing two adults, a child and an unborn kid in Floyd County in March 2020.

Floyd County Circuit Court docket Judge Terrence Cody, in a doc filed on Dec. 30, 2022, took two many years off the probated sentence for Taylor Barefoot.

Floyd County Prosecutor Chris Lane stated he’s glad Choose Cody chose to preserve the executed portion of the sentence the very same next a sentence modification listening to last thirty day period.

“So correctly we advocated that very little should really alter. My normal rule is when a choice is created as a sentencing or plea agreement, we consider it ought to remain in impact except there is incredible situations underneath the law,” Lane stated. “In this unique scenario, thanks to the severity of the criminal offense, when initially we did not concur with the final decision, now that we are below, our hope was it would remain the identical.”

Barefoot was charged for the March 7, 2020 fatalities of Taylor Cole, 21 Leah Onstott-Dunn, 22 Cole’s 3-yr-old son Braxton Fields and her unborn kid. Onstott-Dunn’s 3-year-old youngster was in the car but survived the crash.

In Feb. 2021 she pleaded responsible to three stage 4 felonies for OWI leading to demise and a amount 5 felony for involuntary manslaughter. She was sentenced right after a multi-day sentencing listening to to 20 many years – 12 to provide in the Indiana Department of Correction and 8 on probation.

Based mostly on the judge’s selection, she will only have to serve six many years of probation, but the incarceration sentence stands.

Barefoot was suggested to take part in the Purposeful Incarceration Application, and if she efficiently done the IDOC material abuse plan, the court docket claimed it would look at modifying her sentence.

A listening to was held on Dec. 8 on Barefoot’s petition to modify her sentence. Information and Tribune information husband or wife WAVE3-Television set claimed relatives customers of the victims protested outdoors the Floyd County Courthouse.

“Thinking about what we’ve all misplaced. It’s just about every time I do end for a whilst and believe about it it is really hard not to cry,” Sandra Onstott, stepmother of Leah Onstott-Dunn, informed WAVE3-Television set. “It’s just devastating and nothing at all can alter that. But we just actually desired justice. She desired to see it through.”

Cody wrote in his final decision that the court docket “acknowledges Ms. Barefoot’s optimistic rehabilitative accomplishments although incarcerated at the Division of Corrections.”

Despite that, he wrote minimizing the sentence can take away from the impression of Barefoot’s crimes.

“Reducing the executed part of Defendant’s sentence would depreciate the seriousness of the damage and decline experienced by the family members of Taylor Cole, Braxton Fields, and Leah Onstott-Dunn who were killed in the crash and by Jason Cabrera who survived the crash but misplaced his Mom (Ms. Onstott- Dunn),” Cody wrote in the determination.

On the evening of the crash, evidence and testimony introduced for the duration of Barefoot’s sentencing hearing demonstrates she’d been at a function celebration on March 7, 2020 in downtown Jeffersonville, wherever she was noticed on video clip consuming 5 blended beverages in just two hrs and 15 minutes. She drank the final 3 inside 26 minutes, then left the social gathering at 8:43 p.m.

Barefoot at some point entered the Interstate 65 south off ramp the mistaken way at Lewis and Clark Parkway in Clarksville, and traveled additional than a few miles in the completely wrong way. At 9:17 p.m. she strike the victim’s car head-on about the 5-mile marker on Interstate 265, around the Charlestown Street exit in New Albany.

The 3 victims were taken to neighborhood hospitals and all pronounced dead inside of two hours of the crash. Barefoot was hospitalized for 13 times for accidents sustained in the crash and went to a women’s addiction remedy centre in Alabama for six months instantly soon after.

Barefoot’s blood liquor-material level at the time of the crash was .30.

Beneath Indiana sentencing pointers, Barefoot is essential to serve 75{49e09b23eae7466ccc7574c19ebb3019301c9a11d2999feff81a3526451546a5} of her sentence, or 9 many years in prison. She’s qualified for release in 2030.