Woman charged with murder after car crashed into birthday party, killing two children

The allegedly drunk driver who crashed into a Michigan boat club, crashing 25 feet, killing two young children and injuring 13 others, has been charged with murder, authorities said Tuesday.

Marshella Marie Chidester, 66, of Newport, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of operating while intoxicated causing death and four counts of operating while intoxicated causing serious injury, the Monroe County Prosecutor’s Office said , Jeffrey A. Yorkey. a statement obtained by PEOPLE.

On Saturday afternoon, Chidester allegedly drove through the parking lot of the Swan Boat Club in Berlin Township, where she was formerly commodore, and drove through a building where a children’s birthday party was being held, Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough said at a meeting. press conference later that day.

The crash killed 8-year-old Lana Phillips and her 4-year-old brother Zayn Phillips, according to a GoFundMe post from their aunt Diane Harrington.

They were pronounced dead at the scene, Goodnough said.

Seriously injured in the crash were the children’s mother, Mariah, and 11-year-old brother, Jayden, who were in critical condition after the crash, Harrington said in the GoFundMe.

Additional charges relate to the serious injuries of a 14-year-old male and an 18-year-old female, Yorkey said in the news release.

Chidester’s bond was set at $1.5 million.

Her attorney, Bill Colovos, argued that Chidester, who came to court with her arm in a sling, had been having seizures in her legs before the crash, NBC News reported. He said Chidester drives “like a little old lady” and has no criminal record. The Detroit News reports.

Since November, he said, she has had seizures in her legs that led to paralysis. She was treated before the day of the accident, the day she was treated. News reports.

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He said she only had a glass of wine and a bowl of chili at Verna’s Bar and Grill, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Colovos did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

But Yorkey said there was no evidence Chidester had suffered a seizure on the day of the crash.

An investigation that included a breathalyzer test would have determined she was over the legal limit, Yorkie said News reports. He claimed she admitted to drinking, the newspaper said News

Investigators are awaiting tests that measure her blood alcohol level.

During her arraignment, family members of the victims told the Monroe County judge how Chidester’s alleged actions affected them.

“I had to be the one to tell my sister that her babies were gone when they removed her ventilator yesterday,” Mariah’s sister, Raquel Smouthers, told the judge between sobs. Free press reports.

“She said, ‘How am I going to live without my babies?’”

The children’s grandmother, Kathy Phillips, claimed: ‘She chose to drink and those were my grandchildren’ News reports. “She made the choice to get in that car and she chose to drink and drive and she took those babies from us.”