A woman who caused a car crash that killed Oak Harbor resident Steven Parson and seriously injured another person in 2019 is headed to prison.

Cindy L. Wilson, who also goes by Cindy Ducken, pleaded guilty last month in Island County Superior Court to vehicular homicide and vehicular assault. As part of the plea bargain, a second count of vehicular assault was dismissed.

On Friday, Island County Superior Court Judge Christon Skinner sentenced 63-year-old Wilson to eight years and six months in prison, which was the joint sentence recommendation from the prosecution and defense. He noted that Wilson’s criminal history goes on for pages and that her drug addiction has taken up much of her life.

The collision occurred when Wilson was driving her Jeep Wrangler on East Frostad Road on June 29, 2019. Deputy Prosecutor Michael Safstrom said she drove through a stop sign and onto busy Highway 20, striking an Oak Harbor family’s vehicle. Parson, who was 50, was a backseat passenger in Wilson’s Wrangler and was ejected through the fabric canopy. Multiple people stopped on the roadside and performed CPR, but the injures were “unsurvivable,” the deputy prosecutor said.

“There was never any chance they were going to save him,” he said.

Another passenger in her car and several people in the other vehicle were also injured, according to the deputy prosecutor.

Under the agreement, Wilson pleaded guilty to the “reckless driving” prong of the vehicular homicide charge, which has a shorter sentence range than the “DUI” prong. But with the vehicular assault charge, she admitted to being under the influence at the time of the collision. The vehicular assault charge was for a teenager who suffered a pneumothorax.

Safstrom said Wilson had used methamphetamine before the crash. He said it was clear to troopers at the scene that she was impaired and that vials of her blood tested positive for meth multiple times.

Wilson’s attorney, Matt Montoya, said his client regrets that the tragic crash occurred, which happened because of a series of bad decisions. But ultimately, he pointed out, she pleaded guilty and was ready to pay her debt to society.

The judge noted that the delayed resolution of the case was due to complicated legal issues, including whether the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab was contaminated when her blood was tested. Another attorney argued that Wilson couldn’t be held responsible for Parson’s death because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.

Wilson went through three different lawyers. Based on her behavior, one of her attorneys asked the judge to order a mental health professional to perform a competency evaluation of Wilson. A forensic psychologist found she had the capacity to understand the proceedings.