Woman who crashed into children's birthday party at Swan Boat Club bound over for trial, was twice legal limit

(WWJ/AP) — Marshella Chidester, the woman who killed two children when she crashed into the Swan Boat Club in April, has been ordered to stand trial. She also had a blood alcohol content more than twice the legal limit, according to police.

Chidester, 66, was bound over Thursday at Macomb County Circuit Court on eight charges, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of operating while intoxicated.

A deputy testified at the preliminary hearing that a blood test at the hospital after the April 20th crash showed her Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) to be .18. The legal limit in Michigan while operating a vehicle is .08.

Chidester crashed through the walls of Swan Boat Club in Monroe County’s Newport, where a children’s birthday party was being held. Two siblings — 8-year-old Alanah Phillips and 4-year-old Zayn Phillips — were killed and more than a dozen others were injured, including the children’s mother and and their 11-year-old brother.

Surveillance video shows an SUV careening toward the boat club, and police body cam shows it crossing about 25 feet into the building-- in a scene that Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough described as "extremely chaotic."

Monroe County Sheriff's Deputy Steven Schmidt testified Thursday that he administered several different sobriety tests to the suspect on the scene, including counting backwards, and said Marshella Chidester miscounted.

He decided not to do a couple other tests that involved walking, but noticed she was unstable..

“I felt that by putting her through those tests, it could put herself in harm by potentially falling or tripping, so that’s why I chose not to do those tests,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt said Chidester smelled of alcohol, had watery and bloodshot eyes and had a hard time keeping her balance.

Defense Attorney Bill Colovolos said, during her arraignment in April, that she had only a single glass of wine and a bowl of chili four hours before the crash, and she’d been experiencing “epileptic like seizures in her legs” since November. Prosecutor Jim Yorkey said her friends and family claimed she had a history of substance abuse.

Chidester claims the crash was caused by a medical condition and that she had “passed out while driving”.

She’s due back in court on July 12 for her circuit court arraignment.

If she's convicted of all the charges, she faces up to life in prison.

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