Authorities: Drunk Kilgore Woman Got into Car with Child Inside, Drove into Tree

KILGORE — A Kilgore woman has been arrested after deputies said she climbed in a car she didn’t own with a child in it and drove it into a tree while drunk. KETK and the Longview News-Journal report Gregg County Sheriff’s deputies responded to the incident at about Thursday evening. Julie Lynn Russ, 50, was charged with injury to a child criminal negligence, unauthorized use of a vehicle, and public intoxication in connection to the incident.

The vehicle’s owner said Russ climbed into the car and tried to leave the owner’s house in the 1400 block of Goforth Road in Kilgore. Russ then “accelerated quickly hitting a tree in the front yard of the residence,” the owner told authorities. According to the probable cause affidavit for her arrest, a six-year-old girl was in the car when Russ tried to drive away. After being arrested, Russ told deputies she was “unaware the child was in the vehicle until after the incident,” according to law enforcement reports. Russ was placed in the Gregg County Jail on two $2,500 bonds.