Police: Drunken driver hit 101 mph with kids in back seat

A Kittanning man previously charged with DUI remained in jail Tuesday after Butler state police say he drove 101 mph while drunk last month in Butler County.

Joshua Sol Heigley, 35, was suspected of being under the influence of alcohol when troopers clocked him going nearly twice the speed limit along Route 422 in Summit Township, according to a criminal complaint.

Police said Heigley had an open bottle of alcohol in his car and two young children in the back seat.

The speed limit on that section of road is 55 miles per hour.

Trooper Ronald Kesten, spokesman for the barracks, said Heigley put everyone in danger by driving that fast.

“(He) put himself in danger. He put the children in danger inside the vehicle, and of course everybody else around,” Kesten said. “When you get up to 101 miles an hour, that’s extremely dangerous. Seatbelts and other safety features on vehicles really lose their capacity to properly protect individuals in crashes such as that.”

Trooper Michael Torres was running radar on the highway on March 17 when he saw the speeding car. He said Heigley failed to drive in a single lane on six separate occassions and changed lanes without signaling on three occassions. Heigley had a preliminary hearing scheduled for Tuesday.

When Torres pulled the car over, he saw two young children in the back seat and noticed that the car smelled like alcohol. There also was an open bottle of alcohol in the car, the complaint said.

Heigley was arrested after performing field sobriety tests. He refused a breath test, the complaint said.

This isn’t the first time Heigley has been charged with DUI, according to online court records.

In August, state police in Kittanning charged Heigley with DUI in connection with an incident in East Franklin, Armstrong County. Heigley was charged with DUI twice in October, once by state police in Kittanning for an incident in Harrison and once by Manor Township police. Manor Township is in Armstrong County. He pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in 2014, according to court records.

Heigley is charged with endangering the welfare of children, DUI, reckless endangerment and numerous traffic violations in connection to the March incident. He remained in the Butler County Prison Tuesday after failing to post $250,000 bail.