PASCO COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – In cuffs and ready for the trip to jail, Jessica Watson, 31, is accused of crashing her SUV off of Highway 41 in Spring Hill.
The Ford Explorer came to rest on its side in a back yard. Tim Imhoff noticed a very drunk woman when he stopped to get a drink at the Sunoco station at Bowman Road and Highway 41 on Tuesday. “She was stumbling all over the place. Slurring her words to her kid, leaning on her car, trying to keep up. Standing up, went inside the store with her child. Came out with another beer,” said Imhoff. He called 911. “I told ’em, that maybe, she shouldn’t be leaving anywhere. She handed me her keys,” said Imhoff. Then, things took a turn for the worse. “She took her keys from me after I couldn’t get a hold of anyone for her, tried to run me over with her car,” he said. Watson backed out, hitting him.“I was about ready to move out of the way, when I started hitting her windows, trying to break ’em to get in and take her keys.”
The FHP report says Watson headed south on 41, her four-year-old daughter, without a seat belt, in the passenger seat. She made it less than a mile. Tire marks show her path off the road, through a fence, mowing down everything in her way. Imhoff heard the crash and headed to the scene, but she and the girl were gone. Pasco deputies went to her home, and used a K9 to find her in the woods. When asked why she ran, the FHP report says Watson told them she worried she’d lose her daughter.
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Photo Credit: Pasco Sheriff