Florida DUI Suspect: “I had quite a few.”

On Wednesday night, the 27-year-old Umatilla man said, he stopped at the County Line Bar in Weirsdale and steadily drank Bud Light from 8 p.m. to midnight.

“I had quite a few,” he said.

Around 12:30 a.m. Thursday, He said, he drove from there to visit a girl he had been talking with in the Nuby’s Corner area of the Ocala National Forest. After spending the night at the girl’s home, He said he was on his way to his sister’s home to drop off some juice for her baby. From there, he said, he was going to work at Brian Terry Vinyl in Fruitland Park.

He never made to his sister’s home, or his job.

Around 5:30 a.m. Thursday, he was involved in a vehicle crash on County Road 314A that killed Angela Kay Maddolin, 52, a registered nurse who was on her way to work at the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center in Gainesville.

“I don’t believe I was drunk. I just believe I fell asleep and crossed the line,” said the suspect, sitting on a green bench Friday outside the room at the Marion County Jail that is used for video conferences between inmates and judges.

He spoke with the Star-Banner after his first appearance before Judge Jim McCune.

While the suspect contends alcohol had nothing to do with the terrible accident, Florida Highway Patrol troopers felt otherwise. At Ocala Regional Medical Center on Thursday morning, he was charged with DUI manslaughter and two counts of DUI property damage.

Continued