Drunken driver gets probation in death of Fort Worth man who delivered hospice drugs
A DeSoto man who pleaded guilty to driving drunk when he crashed into a car in 2018 and killed a Fort Worth man was sentenced late Friday to 10 years of probation.
Last week, Derrick Lockhart, 39, of DeSoto, had pleaded guilty to the charge of intoxication manslaughter in the traffic death of Stephen Herrera.
A Tarrant County jury on Friday sentenced Lockhart to probation and fined him $10,000. He also was sentenced to 120 days in jail, which he began serving on Friday, according to court records.
Lockhart remained in the Tarrant County Jail on Monday.
Herrera’s job on the morning of Jan. 7, 2018, was to deliver medications to a hospice patient.
He never made it back home.
Police said Lockhart was driving the wrong way on Texas 121 in Grapevine when he crashed into Herrera’s vehicle, killing the 38-year-old Fort Worth man.
Family member Matt King told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2018 that Herrera worked as a courier delivering medications to hospice patients at all hours. He didn’t know if Herrera had made his delivery when he was killed. Matt King’s sister had been Herrera’s longtime companion.
“He was so outgoing,” King said from Minnesota in a 2018 telephone interview. King and his wife, Wendi, were traveling to Texas for Herrera’s funeral.
Wendi King said Herrera had two teenage children from a previous marriage.
“He adored his two kids,” Wendi King said in a 2018 interview. “He did everything for them.”
Grapevine police said Lockhart was intoxicated when he began going southbound in the northbound lanes of Texas 121 about 4 a.m. on Jan. 7, 2018, near Grapevine Mills mall.
The wrong-way driver crashed head-on with another vehicle, killing Herrera and injuring someone who was in a third vehicle.
Lockhart was treated and released from Baylor Scott & White Medical Center-Grapevine and taken into custody.
This report contains information from Fort Worth Star-Telegram archives.
This story was originally published March 9, 2020 at 10:07 AM.
