LV man pleads guilty in DUI deaths

Greg Tuttle

Thursday, July 20, 2000 | 11:12 a.m.

Michael Owen Pickett pleaded guilty this morning in Clark County District Court to charges stemming from the deaths of four people killed in a violent auto collision while on their way home from a birthday party.

The 24-year-old Las Vegas man pleaded guilty to four counts of driving under the influence causing death. Prosecutors agreed to drop 13 other charges, including involuntary manslaughter, in exchange for the guilty pleas.

Pickett faces four to 10 years on each of the four counts, which will run consecutively. He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 7.

Pickett was initially charged with 18 counts for the May 10 collision at the intersection of Main Street and Washington Avenue. Prosecutors said Pickett was driving drunk when he smashed his 1979 Ford pickup into a 1986 Oldsmobile stopped at a red light.

Dead at the scene were Mary Lynn Sargent, 46, and her boyfriend, James Burton Hendron, 59, both of Las Vegas. Sargent's daughter, Michelle Jamieson, 22, who was eight months pregnant, died the next day after undergoing an emergency Caesarean section. The baby, Julius, suffered brain and kidney damage and died five days later.

A father of two young children, Pickett had a blood alcohol content of 0.22 shortly after the accident. Prosecutors said he also had marijuana in his system and a marijuana pipe was found in the truck wreckage.

Witnesses said the accident occurred when Pickett's truck slammed into the rear end of the four-door sedan at about 8:40 p.m., pushing it 215 feet through the intersection. Prosecutors said the truck was going between 56 and 65 mph when it slammed into the stopped car.

Pickett tried to flee the crash scene, but was detained by witnesses. He has been held in the Clark County Detention Center on $4 million bail since May 18. The high bail was set after prosecutors described Pickett's lengthy history of failing to appear in court on traffic-related charges.

On the day after the fatal wreck, Pickett was scheduled to appear in North Las Vegas Justice Court on a disorderly conduct charge stemming from a drunken brawl at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

A mother of three adult children Sargent was employed for 17 years at the Circus-Circus hotel-casino. Jamieson was a graduate of Rancho High School and engaged to be married at the time of her death.

The family was returning home from celebrating a birthday at the Red Lobster restaurant on Decatur Boulevard when they were killed.