No contest plea in deadly Lakeville Highway crash

A Petaluma man pleaded no contest Monday to felony vehicular manslaughter and other charges stemming from a crash in June on Lakeville Highway that killed a Vallejo woman and injured her 8-year-old granddaughter.

Jesse Martin Cockrill, 25, faces up to eight years in state prison after entering the no contest pleas to felony vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, and sentencing enhancements for personally inflicting great bodily injury to an 8-year-old child and for causing injury to more than one victim, according to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office.

“This case is a tragedy. The victims were completely innocent. One victim paid for this defendant’s selfish and totally preventable crime with her life,” District Attorney Jill Ravitch said in a statement released by her office Monday. “An eight-year-old child was seriously injured. Drivers who are impaired must use a designated driver or call a cab. If they don’t, they will be aggressively prosecuted. The life they save may be their own. ”

Cockrill was driving west on Lakeville Highway near the South McDowell extension in Petaluma at about 10 p.m. June 7, when he crossed the center line and collided with the Toyota being driven by Betty Osotonu of Vallejo.

Osotonu, 65, died at the scene. Her 8-year-old granddaughter spent two days at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital for injuries suffered in the crash. Cockrill had to be extricated from his vehicle. Police found an empty beer container in his car, and witnesses reported smelling alcohol on him immediately after the accident.

Toxicology results from tests performed about two hours after the crash showed Cockrill’s blood alcohol level was 0.16, twice the legal limit, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Cockrill was on probation for two misdemeanor offenses at the time of the crash, both of which prohibited him from possessing alcohol. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for October 15.

You can reach Staff Writer Elizabeth M. Cosin at 521-5276 or elizabeth.cosin@pressdemocrat.com.