GRETNA – Olivia Matte has pleaded guilty to a charge of vehicular homicide on what was supposed to be the first day of her trial for killing a Mississippi man on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway while driving drunk last year.
The twenty-eight-year-old Covington woman was driving on a suspended license on March 23, 2017, when she slammed her vehicle into 37-year-old James Blackmond’s truck, causing a crash that killed him.
Matte also pleaded guilty to vehicular negligent injuring involving Blackmond’s 44-year-old passenger, failing to maintain control of a motor vehicle, and operating a vehicle while her driver’s license was suspended, according to the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office.
Matte had a blood alcohol content of .216 at the time of the crash, almost three times the legal limit in Louisiana.
This was her third DWI arrest.
Matte will remain free on bond until her sentencing, which is scheduled for November 15.