QUESTION: What happens if you smoke meth, go for a morning drive on the 91 freeway and fall asleep at the wheel, losing control at high speeds while exiting at the East Street off-ramp, smacking into a fence and plowing into a utility pole, which causes major head trauma and, later, death to your 27-year-old boyfriend and your daughter, who was one day shy of turning 2?
ANSWER: If you're 29-year-old Tomeka Charee Harris of Fullerton, you get six years to stew in prison.
The Orange County District Attorney's Office press release on the case follows the jump . . .
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November 9, 2009
Case # 08NF2737
MOTHER SENTENCED TO SIX YEARS IN PRISON FOR KILLING TODDLER AND BOYFRIEND IN HIGH-SPEED CRASH WHILE UNDER INFLUENCE OF METHAMPHETAMINE
FULLERTON – A mother was sentenced today to six years in state prison for killing her boyfriend and her 2-year-old daughter in a high-speed crash after falling asleep at the wheel while under the influence of methamphetamine. Tomeka Charee Harris, 29, Fullerton, pleaded guilty to a court offer Oct. 23, 2009, to two felony counts of vehicular manslaughter by unlawful act with gross negligence while intoxicated.
At approximately 10:00 a.m. on Jan. 12, 2008, Harris was speeding westbound on State Route 91 in her Mitsubishi sport utility vehicle with her boyfriend, 27-year-old Alfred Flores, and her daughter, Zharia Keheian, who was one day from turning 2 years old. Harris fell asleep at the wheel and lost control of her car while exiting at the East Street off-ramp at a high rate of speed, driving into a fence and crashing into a steel utility pole. Harris' baby and boyfriend both suffered head trauma from the impact and were killed. The defendant was under the influence of methamphetamine at the time of the crash.
Deputy District Attorney Susan Price of the Homicide Unit prosecuted this case.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.