A 57-year-old man from Southeast D.C. has pleaded guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter related to a July traffic collision that killed two men on a park bench in Northwest D.C.

Jeoffrey R. Williams faces between three to five years in prison for each death, meaning a total of between six and 10 years, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. He will be sentenced on February 14 of next year.

Williams was originally charged with murder in the deaths of Dwight Thomas Spriggs and Jesus Llanes-Datil, two men experiencing homelessness who were on a park bench at James Monroe Park near Foggy Bottom. The charges were lessened to manslaughter with the guilty plea.

The crash happened on July 10 of this year shortly before midnight. Williams was driving a GMC Yukon SUV “at a high rate of speed” down Pennsylvania Avenue NW on the wrong side of the street, per prosecutors. He jumped the curb and sped into the park, where he hit Spriggs and Llanes-Datil.  Both men died at the scene, while Williams was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Tests on the vehicle’s crash data recorder showed that Williams was going 63 miles per hour down Pennsylvania Avenue NW in the five seconds before the crash, according to the police affidavit filed in court. One second before the crash, Williams was traveling 68 miles per hour with no signs of breaking, the affidavit states. The speed limit on that part of Pennsylvania Avenue is 25 miles per hour.

Two separate blood samples collected from Williams after the crash showed that he was intoxicated by alcohol when it occurred, according to court records. He told detectives that he drank a mixture of tequila and Red Bull at a friend’s home in the hours before the crash. He had taken a cup with the mixture into the vehicle, and was drinking from it while driving, per the affidavit. He told police that he doesn’t remember the crash and that he “must have passed out.”

At a vigil for Spiggs and Llanes-Datil shortly after the crash, traffic safety advocates called for changes to the street. “It’s actually a really inhospitable place,” Greg Billing, executive director for the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, told DCist. “Just walking across the street is like, eight lanes of traffic—it’s really terrifying. It really doesn’t work for anybody.”

Previously:
We Still Know Almost Nothing About A Crash That Killed Two People On A Downtown Park Bench
Park Police Identify Two Victims Killed By SUV Driver In Park
Questions Linger As Community Holds Vigil For Two People Killed By Driver In Downtown Park
Two Pedestrians Were Killed By An SUV Driver Who Barreled Into A Northwest D.C. Park