Plymouth County woman sentenced to three to five years in fatal crash that also sent child to hospital

BROCKTON – A Marshfield woman pleaded guilty to charges related to a fatal 2022 motor vehicle collision in Hull, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz has announced. 

42-year-old Jennifer Bowes was sentenced to three to five years in state prison today after pleading guilty in Brockton Superior Court to Motor Vehicle Homicide, Child Endangerment While Operating Under the Influence of Drugs, and Reckless Endangerment of a Child. 

On March 25, 2022, at about 1:50 p.m. officers with the Hull Police Department responded to a two-vehicle collision on Nantasket Avenue. Law enforcement personnel found Bowes- whose young child was in the back seat of her car had struck another vehicle head-on. The operator of the other vehicle, 64-year-old John Duxbury, sustained life-threatening injuries and was pronounced deceased shortly after the crash. 

Bowes and her child were taken to South Shore Hospital for medical evaluation where personnel treating Bowes noticed symptoms of impairment, and alerted Massachusetts State Police. Investigators applied for a search warrant for the defendant’s blood, and testing at the Massachusetts Crime Laboratory showed Bowes had benzodiazepines, cannabinoids and cocaine in her system at the time of the fatal collision. 

Bowes prison sentence will be followed by five years of probation, with the conditions that she submit to random drug and alcohol screenings, surrender her license to operate a motor vehicle for 15 years, and that she completes 50 hours of community service. 

Assistant District Attorney Jessica Croker prosecuted the case, which was investigated by Massachusetts State Police and officers with the Hull Police Department.