August 4th, 2016
Driver faces new manslaughter charge after unborn baby dies from Texas 21 wreck injuries

COVER: Bryan residents Kristian Guerrero, 24, and Fabian Guerrero-Moreno, 23, in an undated wedding photo. Fabian Guerrero-Moreno was killed in a car wreck Tuesday evening on Texas 21 in eastern San Marcos. PHOTO VIA FACEBOOK

Update

3:57 p.m. FRIDAY, AUG. 5: Shana Lee Elliott, 21, was arraigned this morning on a second count of intoxication manslaughter, a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison. Bail was set at $200,000 by Hays County Pct. 1 Justice of the Peace Joann Prado.

Earlier

by BRAD ROLLINS

10:52 a.m. THURSDAY, AUG. 4: A Texas State University student facing felony intoxication manslaughter and assault charges told San Marcos police that she had been drinking alcohol while floating the river on Tuesday prior to a wreck that killed a Bryan man and seriously injured his five-months pregnant wife.

Shana Lee Elliott

On Wednesday, police filed a second felony intoxication manslaughter charge against 21-year-old Shana Lee Elliott after the couple’s unborn baby died at St. David’s South Austin Medical Center. The mother, 24-year-old Kristian Guerrero, is still being treated for injuries at the hospital; the father, 23-year-old Fabian Guerrero-Moreno, was pronounced dead at the wreck scene on Texas 21 near its intersection with Texas 80.

The Texas Penal Code defines a person to include “an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth” and defines death to include “the failure to be born alive,” except in abortions and other specific exceptions.

“Unborn children are people for the purposes of most crimes,” Hays County District Attorney Wes Mau said.

Elliott told San Marcos police officer Vincent Fischer that she was returning home from a friend’s house in the Blanco River Village neighborhood after drinking “beer and liquor” earlier in the day at Texas State Tubes, a river recreation outfitter near Martindale, according to court documents first reported by the San Antonio Express-News. As he interviewed Elliott, Fischer said he could “detect the strong odor of an intoxicating beverage on her breath” and that her eyes were glassy and blood shot, the affidavits state.

A witness told Fischer that a woman wearing a bikini rolled a bottle of liquor under a vehicle before police arrived at the scene, the affidavit states.

Elliott is being held on bail set at $185,000 by Hays County Pct. 2 Justice of the Peace Beth Smith for the first charge of intoxication manslaughter, a second-degree felony, and intoxication assault, a third-degree felony.

Bail has not yet been set on the newest charge of intoxication manslaughter, jail records state; Elliott was not magistrated at the jail with other defendants this morning because she was hospitalized, a clerk for Hays County Pct. 5 Justice of the Peace Scot Carry said.

Elliott, a Texas State mass communications and public relations senior, faces four drug charges stemming from two different arrests this spring, court records state.

On March 22, Elliott was arrested by the Hays County Narcotics task force on two counts of controlled substance possession, one a third-degree felony and the other a state jail felony, records state. On May 2, she was arrested by the Hays County Sheriff’s Office on two additional counts of controlled substance possession, a second-degree felony and a third-degree felony, records state.

You can help

Kristian Guerrero’s aunt has set up a GoFundMe page to raise donations for the Bryan woman who lost her husband and unborn child in San Marcos on Aug. 2.

Video

Downloads

Probable cause affidavit for intoxication manslaughter charge against Shana Lee Elliott [pdf]