Meth-impaired driver in double-fatality crash takes plea offer
May 11—A 32-year-old woman who was driving under the influence of drugs in a 2021 crash that claimed the lives of a Joplin couple accepted a plea offer Tuesday that could send her to prison for 23 years.
Rita M. Glasgow pleaded guilty in Jasper County Circuit Court to counts of driving while intoxicated resulting in the deaths of Rhonda and Terry Copple and of possession of meth in a plea deal dismissing a third count of vehicle tampering.
Glasgow's plea deal would limit the sentences she might receive to 23 years on the driving charge and five years for the drug count with the two terms to run concurrently. Because she was being prosecuted as a prior and persistent offender, Glasgow faced enhanced penalty ranges of five to 30 years on the most serious offense and three to 10 years for the drug count.
Her decision to plead guilty came unexpectedly at a hearing that Prosecutor Theresa Kenney sought to obtain the court's permission to add two counts of manslaughter to the charges against the defendant.
As Kenney began explaining to Circuit Judge Gayle Crane why she wished to amend charges in a case that had been scheduled to go to trial this week, Glasgow whispered something to her attorney, Craig Lowe, who interrupted Kenney's explanation to inform the court that his client might be willing to accept a plea offer that had been on the table.
The plea agreement was reached several minutes later after consultations in private of Lowe with his client and Kenney with family members of the Copples.
The judge delayed any acceptance or rejection of the plea bargain, ordered a sentencing assessment of the defendant and set her sentencing hearing for July 25.
Glasgow was driving a GMC Sierra pickup truck Jan. 3, 2021, when she ran a stop sign on 28th Street and slammed into the victims' Ford Escape, which was northbound on Connecticut Avenue.
Kenney said at Tuesday's hearing that a witness told police that the pickup truck appeared to be traveling about 60 mph when it knocked the SUV up over a curb and across a yard into the side of a house.
Rhonda Copple, 48, died at the scene of the crash. Terry Copple, 55, was taken to Freeman Hospital West, where he was pronounced dead.
Glasgow, who suffered serious injuries, was taken to Freeman's emergency room, where an officer who contacted her there observed that her pupils "were constricted with eyelid tremors" and that she appeared to be highly excited, fidgeting with her fingers and exhibiting twitching of body parts, which the officer interpreted as indicators of meth use.
Kenney said Glasgow admitted to the officer that she used methamphetamine that day. A bag containing meth was discovered in her bra by the medical staff treating her, and a blood sample drawn from her came back positive for both meth and the anti-convulsant medication clonazepam.
The defendant was being prosecuted as a persistent offender due to four convictions for felony drug possession and one for felony theft in Jasper and Vernon counties.
Glasgow still faces drug trafficking charges from arrests in Newton County in 2019 and 2020 as well as federal charges of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute meth in Newton County.
