CANYON COUNTRY : 3-Time DUI Offender Faces Murder Charge

A Canyon Country man convicted three times in six years of drunk driving was charged with murder Tuesday in connection with an apparently alcohol-related accident last week that killed a Palmdale woman and injured her two young children.

Scott Brumett, 31, suffered only cuts and bruises in the two-car accident in Newhall on Feb. 19, authorities said. Wendy Holtz, 26, was killed instantly when Brumett’s auto allegedly strayed into her lane and smashed into her car head-on, knocking her vehicle 75 feet down a cliff. Her 3-year-old son, Joshua, suffered skull fractures and her 2-year-old daughter, Paige, received lesser injuries, authorities said.

Witnesses saw Brumett throwing about 10 beer cans out the window of his coupe after the accident, said California Highway Patrol Officer David Pokorny.

Prosecutors are confident that results of Brumett’s blood alcohol test--which will not be ready until late this week--will indicate he was driving with an alcohol level above the .08 at which drivers are considered legally drunk, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Davis-Springer.

Brumett’s three convictions prompted the district attorney’s office to try him for murder, an unusually heavy charge in a drunk-driving case, she said.