Earlier this month, a San Antonio judge handed down a sentence to District 10 San Antonio City Councilman Clayton Perry that many perceived as a slap on the wrist for charges he faced of fleeing the scene of a hit and run while drunk behind the wheel.
Despite his involvement in what could have been a deadly collision, Perry received just 12 months of probation and 24 hours of community service.
What's more, local authorities didn't file a DWI charge against Perry until a month and a half after the crash, leading to more speculation that he received special treatment due to his status.
Next week, South Texas will again play host to a trial involving another high-profile defendant accused of causing a crash while intoxicated behind the wheel. Documents also suggest the person at the center of that trial — Kendall Lauren Batchelor, the daughter of prominent former car dealer Ken Batchelor — may have received special treatment from authorities.
The trial for Batchelor, who's accused of striking and killing motorist David Belter, 49, in a 2022 wrong-way collision, is set to begin May 15 in Kendall County District Court.
"There's been a lot of public interest in this case for class reasons, that the [defendant is the] child of someone who has a very publicly recognized name," San Antonio criminal defense attorney John T. Hunter told the Current. "And with that, I think there are assumptions that there's affluence, that there's privilege and opportunity. And society loves a good story about how the wealthy and powerful are human like the rest of us and make mistakes."
He added: "I think it's a little bit of a morbid curiosity and the social class structure of South Texas."
However, records suggest that some of the public interest in the trial extends not only from the defendant's blood ties to Ken Batchelor, who founded the upscale Northwest San Antonio dealership that still bears his name, but how local authorities handled a previous incident she had behind the wheel.
Observers said the most recent crash and its outcome also may shed light on an entrenched culture of drunk driving in San Antonio and South Texas.
Head-on crash
While the Perry collision drew plenty of local media attention even though no one was seriously injured, Batchelor's resulted in the death of a Texas Hill Country resident.
That crash occurred just after 10 p.m. June 2, 2022, when Batchelor was heading west on State Highway 46 outside Boerne, according to the allegations against her. She was driving on the wrong side of the road when her 2021 black Ford F-250 pickup slammed head-on into the sedan driven by Belter, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety crash report obtained by the Current.
Belter died on impact. And although it's unclear from documents how fast Batchelor was driving, the force of the collision was strong enough to send her three-quarter-ton pickup rolling, the crash report said.
Batchelor was later found to have had a blood alcohol concentration of .166. She also tested positive for methamphetamines, cannabinoids and opiates, the crash report states.
Although Batchelor's exact whereabouts prior to the crash will likely remain unclear until details come out during the trial, an attorney representing Belter's parents in a $1 million wrongful death suit subpoenaed Oben Werks LLC, the owner of Boerne's Richter Tavern, for all "pictures, surveillance camera footage or photographic material of any kind," from the bar on the date of the incident.
In response, the attorney representing the bar's owner filed a protective order.
"Richter Tavern does have receipts and video available regarding Ms. Batchelor but requests a protective order to protect all other patrons captured on the video and proprietary information of Richter Tavern," the motion said, suggesting that Batchelor was served at the bar the day of the crash.
Prior charges
While the details of the crash are salacious, potentially more alarming is that Batchelor appears to have avoided a late-2021 DWI charge after she was involved in another collision. That decision by authorities not to bring charges came despite her existing police record.
In July 2019, when she was 19, Batchelor pleaded guilty to a DWI in Kendall County, according to court documents. She was ordered to pay a $500 fine and was sentenced to nine months of supervised release.
Months prior to that arrest, Batchelor also was cited for underage drinking in Brazos County, according to records.
San Antonio attorney Hunter said such charges frequently receive little serious punishment, noting that most first-time DWI offenders get probation.
"A minor in possession of alcohol charges is nothing," he added.
Even so, those charges color the subsequent police incident involving Batchelor on Dec. 23, 2021. That time, the events are murkier in police and court records — and despite more potentially serious consequences, she ended up facing no charges.
Eyewitness to a hit-and-run
Boerne residents Mackenzie Woodie and Kennedy Jones were smoking cigarettes on a friend's front porch at the Burning Tree Condominium complex around 3 a.m. when they saw a pickup truck smack into a pair of parked vehicles.
Batchelor was behind the wheel of the truck and driving at a "high rate of speed," according to a crash report from the incident. The force of the impact turned one of the parked cars sideways and pushed another onto a nearby sidewalk. Luckily, no one was inside either vehicle.
According to both Woodie and Jones, Batchelor tried to flee the scene in her badly damaged truck.
Jones jumped in her car, which was parked nearby but hadn't been struck. Woodie stayed behind and called the police.
Batchelor's badly damaged ride didn't make it far. It sputtered out in the parking lot of Boerne Champion High School, where Jones caught up and confronted her, according to police records. Batchelor appeared to be intoxicated, according to Jones.
"I smelled it on her," she recalls.
Boerne police officers Amy Breedlove and James Estrada arrived on the scene shortly thereafter, according to Jones. However, the two cops didn't appear as concerned about what could have been a fatal hit-and-run crash as they were to whether Jones had laid hands on Batchelor.
"[Estrada] kept saying stuff like, 'I'd be pretty mad if someone hit my car,'" Woodie said. "Then he grabbed his iPad and started taking pictures of her [Jones'] hands, because Kendall kept saying she assaulted her."
No assault charges came, but Breedlove suspected that Batchelor was intoxicated, according to her initial police report. In a report filed at 3:15 a.m., the Boerne officer referred a DWI charge against Batchelor for prosecution.
The damage, too, was not insignificant. "The tow truck drivers who were trying to pick up the cars off the lawn kept saying how bad it was," Woodie told the Current. "[Batchelor's] pickup was spewing oil all over the neighbors' cars."
Changing case number
Despite Breedlove's referral, the officers allowed one of Batchelor's friends who'd shown up at the scene, Alex Babineaux, to drive her to the hospital, Woodie recounts. Before departing the crime scene, Breedlove and Estrada gave Woodie and Jones their business cards with the case number of the incident scribbled in blue ink.
Batchelor would never be charged with a DWI in relation to the December 2021 incident, police and court documents show. If she had, it would have been her second, resulting in a minimum three-day jail sentence and a suspension of her license under the Texas Penal Code.
Under state law, that suspension would have lasted between 180 days and two years — long enough to have prevented her from legally getting behind the wheel on June 2, 2022.
Instead of pursuing a DWI charge, Estrada filed a second Boerne police report at 10 p.m. on Dec. 23, some 19 hours after police documents show that Batchelor plowed into Woodie's vehicle.
In that report, filed under a different case number, Estrada only recommends charges of Hitting Unattended Vehicle and Leaving the Scene.
Kendall County Criminal District Attorney Nicole Bishop subsequently pursued just hit-and-run charges against Batchelor, misdemeanors far less severe than the potential second DWI that could have landed her in jail for up to a year, per the Texas Penal Code.
In March 2022, Woodie requested a copy of the police report using the case number provided by Breedlove and Estrada so she could file a claim with her insurance company. However, Boerne police informed Woodie via email that she had "inadvertently" been given the wrong case number. Instead, they provided her with the case number written by Estrada recommending the hit-and-run charge.
"I've heard of multiple instances where [Batchelor's] been intoxicated and wrecked a vehicle," Woodie's friend Jones said. "She hasn't learned from the previous times before, and they did nothing from it. And now she's killed somebody while driving under the influence."
Records request
The Current was able to obtain both police reports via a June 9, 2022, open records request. However, attorneys representing the City of Boerne initially declined the request on June 23 of that year, filing an injunction and requesting that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervene. Among other things, the lawyers argued that the records were "of no legitimate public interest."
Paxton's office ultimately ruled in the Current's favor.
That same month, Kendall County Assistant District Attorney Robert F. Lipo and Boerne Police Department Detective Micha Binkley declined the Current's request for comment as to why the county declined to pursue a DWI charge against Batchelor for the December crash.
After follow-up reporting from the Current, Kendall County DA Bishop reached out via email, stating that her office rejected the case because there was "not sufficient evidence to support a DWI charge."
Bishop declined to say whether police administered a Breathalyzer test to Batchelor on Dec. 23. She also declined to say why Batchelor was allowed to be transported to a hospital by Babineaux immediately following the crash.
Woodie, Jones, Breedlove, Estrada and Babineaux have all been subpoenaed to testify in the upcoming Batchelor trial, according to court records.
'I'm going to get you out of jail'
Even after the June 6 collision that killed Belter, Batchelor appeared to have made a relatively soft landing in the legal system.
For the intoxication manslaughter case, Batchelor was booked and charged from her hospital bed since she'd suffered serious injuries from the accident, according to the crash report. At the time, Kendall County Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Debby Hudson marked her warrant "no bond."
Even so, a Bexar County magistrate judge, without explanation, signed off on Batchelor's release on $120,000 bail just two days after the incident, court records show.
Batchelor ultimately made bond, but her freedom was short-lived. After missing six in-home Breathalyzer test screening windows between June 21 and June 22, Kendall County pretrial services revoked her bond, court records show.
Batchelor's father would later testify to the judge presiding over the case, Texas 451st District Court Judge Kristen B. Cohoon, that his daughter withdrew $60,000 from his bank account during the time she was out on bail, the Boerne Star Reports.
The former car dealer told Cohoon — the same judge who presided over his daughter's 2019 DWI case — that he feared she might flee, according to the paper's reporting.
Even so, Judge Cohoon told Kendall Batchelor during a Sept. 30 hearing that she was doing everything in her power to get her out of Kendall County Jail, the Boerne Star also reported.
"I'm moving you on a fast track," Cohoon reportedly said. "I'm going to get you out of jail one way or the other, but at this juncture I cannot."
Despite that assurance, Cohoon ultimately declined Batchelor's attempts to get bonded out four separate times, according to court documents. Through court staff, Cohoon indicated she would be unavailable to discuss terms of the case.
South Texas' DWI problem
The incidents involving Batchelor and Perry, and the recent drunk driving arrests of other San Antonio elite including longtime KSAT-TV news anchor Greg Simmons and KABB-TV daytime television show host Esteban Solis, are emblematic of a drunk driving problem plaguing San Antonio and the surrounding area, observers said.
In 2021, San Antonio was ranked as the No. 4 worst city for drunk driving in the nation, according to a BuyAutoInsurance.com report based on FBI crime statistics. The city recorded 1,111 DUI arrests per 100,000 residents annually.
"I've lived in a lot of places before, but San Antonio appears to have an unusually high rate of uninsured drivers and hostile drivers, and unfortunately, a strong culture that encourages irresponsible drinking," said Evita Morin, CEO of San Antonio-based drug and alcohol treatment group Rise Recovery.
Morin also attributed San Antonio's alarming rates to the city's lack of walkability and paucity of public transportation options.
San Antonio, and Texas in general, also offer fewer mental health resources, meaning more residents are likely to seek solace in a bottle, Morin said.
"It's a struggle I see here as far as people not getting the help that they need," she added. "I think that is a national problem. I don't think people are always assessed as having an issue until a consequence like a DUI happens, and then they start to realize that 'maybe this is a problem for me.'"
In Batchelor's case, that problem could result in serious jail time. Given her current charges, she faces up to 20 years in prison, with a mandatory minimum of two years behind bars, according to Hunter.
Batchelor's high-profile DWI attorney, Louis D. Martinez, told Judge Cohoon in pre-trial hearings that his client has post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, anxiety and substance abuse problems.
Batchelor's array of issues stems from the brutal slaying of her mother, Martha Batchelor, on July 6, 2013, the attorney said. (Martha Batchelor had divorced Ken Batchelor in 2007, according to media reports.)
A suspect, Bradford Hudson, was arrested for Martha Batchelor's killing in 2019. Although Hudson was extradited to Bexar County from Northern California that same year, the Bexar County District Attorney's Office dismissed Hudson's capital murder charge "pending further investigation."
Hudson died in a Bexar County Medical facility in 2020, according to media reports. The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office never received a report regarding Hudson's cause of death, according to KSAT-TV.
Although San Antonio attorney Hunter said that "all bets are off" when it comes to what kind of punishment the public could expect to see if Batchelor is found guilty, he did say that mitigating circumstances could play a factor.
"The fact that this person experienced a really horrific kind of childhood trauma, the violent death of her mother, yeah, I think that goes hand in hand," he said. "There's a lot of people in the world who are using substances to cope with something."
Yet despite Batchelor's alleged mental anguish and San Antonio's strong drinking culture, the biggest contributor to South Texas' drinking and driving problem could be the state of Texas' lenient sentencing when it comes to drunk driving.
According to Hunter, most first-time offenders in Texas get probation, with others even managing to plead their charges down to obstruction of a highway. At the same time, those under the legal drinking age can sometimes convince a judge to place them on a juvenile diversion program.
About 28% of the 69,000 DWIs in Bexar County between 2009 and 2022 were pleaded down to obstruction of a highway, a misdemeanor charge, the Express-News reported this year in a data-driven investigation.
Natalie Paulus, Mothers Against Drunk Driving's manager of victim services in Texas, told the Current such statistics are why her organization is working to introduce local and national legislation to force new efforts to curb drinking and driving.
"We were integral in the past legislative session nationally to help push through the Halt and Ride Acts, which if passed, will mandate new vehicles to have technology to detect alcohol impairment," Paulus said.
But for all the consternation about the dangers of drunk driving, prosecutors may have a hard time earning a conviction against Batchelor.
The state must prove that Batchelor was not only intoxicated, but drunk, at the time of the crash. Hunter told the Current that proving intoxication isn't as cut and dry as it might appear to the public.
"If I took 20 shots of tequila in a row at the bar, and I walk out of the bar immediately after, and I get into an accident pulling out of the parking lot, I'm probably not intoxicated," Hunter explained. "That alcohol hasn't been absorbed into my bloodstream yet. But I'm going to be blackout drunk by the time they get me to the station and get a blood sample."
Hunter also said that Batchelor's defense team could question the results from the blood sample taken at the scene, noting that there can be errors in the way blood is collected.
Batchelor, unlike many defendants, can afford a top attorney to pursue those lines of questioning. And that means — just like in the Dec. 2021 incident — she could skate on the charge.
The difference may be that this time, San Antonio will be watching.
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