A drunk driver charged with killing a Point Loma Nazarene University graduate in a fiery crash pleaded guilty Sept. 2 to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.
\nRoy Thomas Dunkin, 51, will be sentenced Nov. 4 in the Aug. 20 death of Lucas Makana Riley, 24, of San Diego. He also pleaded guilty to drunk driving, causing injury to three other people.
\nDunkin, of Ramona, faces a maximum term of 13 years and eight months and there is no sentencing agreement with the District Attorney\u2019s office, said prosecutor Cally Bright.
\nBright said Dunkin\u2019s guilty plea was the quickest one entered in any of her drunk driving fatality cases that she has handled. Dunkin entered his guilty plea at his second court appearance after only being arraigned on Aug. 24.
\nUsually such cases have a preliminary hearing before any guilty plea is entered. Often a trial is set and the case\u2019s conclusion may be a year after the incident.
\nDunkin\u2019s attorney could not be reached for comment. San Diego Superior Court Judge Laura Halgren took his guilty plea and gave no indication as to what his sentence will be.
\nOn Saturday, a memorial service was held at PNLU for Riley. He was a 2014 graduate and was a sculptor. He was engaged to Shawna Wickwire, a 2013 PLNU graduate, and they were to be married in October.
\nPLNU president Bob Brower issued a statement after Riley\u2019s death, saying “The PLNU community is deeply saddened by this sudden and tragic loss.”
\nRiley helped a PLNU art professor in the installation of a permanent art piece for the County of San Diego in Little Italy.
\nRiley was driving a Mini Cooper that was struck by Dunkin\u2019s Chevrolet pickup truck, which clipped a Buick sedan in front of him, resulting in a head-on crash. Riley\u2019s car burst into flames and he died in his vehicle.
\nDunkin broke his wrist in the crash. Halgren changed his $2 million bail figure to no bail and he remains in jail.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A drunk driver charged with killing a Point Loma Nazarene University graduate in a fiery crash pleaded guilty Sept. 2 to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. Roy Thomas Dunkin, 51, will be sentenced Nov. 4 in the Aug. 20 death of Lucas Makana Riley, 24, of San Diego. He also pleaded guilty to drunk driving, […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Drunk driver pleads guilty in crash that killed PLNU grad","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,12360,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-duplicate","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}