Driver convicted in '97 DUI death is charged again

A woman who was once described by a judge as being a "human bomb" because of her record of drunken driving was arrested again on a DUI charge nearly a decade after she killed a woman on the Sammamish Plateau.

Susan L. West, 48, was cited by a Bellevue police officer at 12:15 a.m. Sunday while driving a 1998 Buick in the 5600 block of 119th Avenue Southeast in the Newport Hills area.

West, who was arrested and booked into the King County jail, was charged with one count of driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol or drugs and one count of driving with a suspended license. She refused to take a blood-alcohol test, police said.

Bail was set at $75,000 on each count, with a judge concluding at a Monday hearing that West "is an extreme danger to the community."

West was about two blocks from an apartment where she has lived since being released from prison three years ago. She served six years in the death of 38-year-old Mary Johnsen.

In July 1997, West had a blood-alcohol reading of 0.34 percent when she struck Johnsen, who was walking along a Sammamish Plateau road with her husband, Keith.

Johnsen's death helped lead to demands for tougher drunken-driving laws, with the Legislature in 1998 adopting some 13 new DUI laws, including one lowering the intoxication level from 0.10 percent to its present 0.08 percent. One that requires ignition interlocks was named the Mary Johnsen law.

"You spend eight or nine years trying to find a way to make peace," Keith Johnsen said Tuesday. "The very first thought that comes to mind is, 'Why am I not surprised?'"

At West's sentencing in November 1997, King County Superior Court Judge Larry Jordan imposed an exceptional sentence, ordering West to serve nine years in prison, plus four years of probation.

"You, in essence, became a human bomb," said Jordan, who cited a 20-year history of drunken-driving violations and failed alcoholism treatments in sentencing West.

"Tragically, the previous orders from the court had no impact," the judge said then.

In January, the court noted West had successfully met the terms of her sentence in Johnsen's death, and the case was closed.

West was arrested Sunday after a Bellevue police officer noticed a car with a burned-out taillight being driven erratically along 119th Avenue Southeast, a Bellevue police spokesman said.

When the officer stopped the car, the driver smelled of alcohol, had slurred speech and showed other symptoms of drunkenness, police reported. Police said West told them she had had four glasses of wine that day.

West was scheduled to appear in court twice this week to enter pleas, but both appearances were canceled for medical reasons, and court records indicated she was in a detoxification center.

She is next scheduled to appear in court Friday.

Peyton Whitely: 206-464-2259 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com